Hot holes at Berenguela

Vancouver — Silver Standard Resources (SSO-T) is encouraged by drill results from the Berenguela silver-copper-managanese project in southern Peru. The junior has an option on the silver resource specifically.

Drilling in the West Block produced the best grades, including:

– 54 metres of 520 grams silver per tonne, including 39 metres of 624 grams silver, in hole 40;

– 83 metres of 329 grams silver, including 28 metres of 507 grams, in hole 48;

– 37 metres of 503 grams silver, including 15 metres of 1,019 grams, in hole 47; and

– 30 metres of 448 grams silver, including 10 metres of 1,109 grams, in hole 42.

Silver Standard has completed 5,247 metres of reverse-circulation drilling in 57 holes to verify historic grades of widely spaced holes and to fill in the spacing at the two mineralized zones to prepare for resource categorization.

Copper results were unavailable.

Silver Standard has entered into an option agreement with the owners of the property, Sociedad Minera Berenguela and Fossores, to update the silver resource so that it complies with National Instrument 43-101. The company paid US$200,000 and 17,500 shares upon signing of the deal in April 2003, and it agreed to spend at least US$500,000 on drilling and other work.

In return, Silver Standard will have the right to mine the silver for at least six months, when the price reaches or exceeds US$7 per oz.

The stratiform replacement deposit occurs in folded dolomitic limestone. Hydrothermal solutions are believed to have deposited iron and manganese oxides with silver, copper and minor zinc. The near-surface deposit is more than 500 metres wide, 1,500 metres long, and 60 metres thick.

Berenguela has been little-explored since the 1960s. Between 1905 and 1965, the property produced more than 11 million oz. silver, plus copper, from 500,000 tonnes grading 750 grams silver per tonne.

There are 17,700 metres of underground drifts and crosscuts in the mineralized zone, which has been drilled extensively and bulk-sampled.

Drilling in the 1960s led to a resource estimate of 14 million tonnes grading 125 grams silver per tonne, or 56.3 million oz., as well as 1.32% copper and 18% manganese.

Recent studies suggest potential for a 700,000-tonne-per-year mine that would produce almost 6 million oz. annually over 20 years.

Metallurgical tests were able to recover more than 90% of the manganese, copper and silver through conventional crushing followed by leaching with sulphuric acid and sulphur dioxide.