despite the fact that the stock is up five points from its recent low, the total market cap of sso is now less than value of one of its projects.

the market cap is less than $2 billion. pirquitas will produce 11 million oz. of silver/yr, which at current prices works out to about $200 million. given a 14.5 year mine life, that will total almost $3 billion, all of which will go directly to operating profits.

the metal you never hear much about is tin. as they said in the recent conference call, this is a very good time to be producing tin. it continues to make new highs, now well over $10/lb, and pirquitas has reserves of 159 million lbs. at current prices, that works out to $1.7 billion, and assuming a recovery rate of 57%, the tin will sell for amost $1 billion.

that's why they used to say the base metal credits would pay for all of the expenses at pirquitas, and now they say the tin will pay for all of the costs by itself. the zinc (6% of the economic value) and indium can pay for the royalty and export tax on concentrates, so all of the silver revenue will go to profits.

i don't use a discount rate to calculate the npv of this project because i expect the silver revenues to increase at any reasonable discount rate you could choose, and the base metals will continue to mitigate higher energy and other costs going forward.

one project by itself will contribute $3 billion, and probably more if/when they find more reserves to extend mine life, and the company still has 15 more projects with well over 1 billion oz. of silver, yet the market cap is still under $2 billion. and that assumes the price of silver behaves itself.

there must still be some uncertaintly in the investment community about whether pirquitas will be commissioned on schedule, but unless a military junta seizes power in argentina, we are going to look back and wonder how this stock could have traded at $30/share.