Southern Silver Exploration Corp. reported that the company continues to de-risk the Cerro Las Minitas project with the completion of the latest round of metallurgical test work. Results confirmed a sequential process flowsheet able to produce marketable copper, lead and zinc concentrates from a representative composite of the Skarn Front deposit, significantly increasing the marketability and projected value of the resulting lead and zinc concentrates compared to earlier batch testing. These results are highlighted by a 94.7% zinc recovery grading 54.0% Zn in the zinc concentrate and grades of 5,504g/t Ag and 65.1% Pb in the lead concentrate. Silver strongly partitions into the lead and copper concentrates for a combined 83.8% Ag recovery into concentrates that traditionally receive favourable payable terms. This round of test work utilized a more robust protocol than the earlier reported batch testing, resulting in significant upgrades of both the lead and zinc concentrates and greater confidence in the recovery and grade projections. Further variability test work on the Skarn Front deposit continues in order to determine the broader parameters for metallurgical recoveries and concentrate values. Results from this additional test work are still pending. The test work was conducted on behalf of Southern Silver by Blue Coast Research of Parksville, British Columbia, and improves on earlier batch testing that generated high-grade lead and zinc concentrates from the Blind-El Sol deposits and high-grade lead, zinc and copper concentrates from the Skarn Front deposit. The current test work program comprises: locked-cycle and batch testing of the Cu-Pb-Zn flowsheet of the Skarn Front composite which has now been completed; and batch testing of subset composites to better understand the implications of grade variability within the deposit Eight different samples were collected for variability test work. These ranged from high grade to low grade with varying precious and base-metal ratios designed to reflect a range of potential ore compositions throughout the Skarn Front deposit. A total of 210.8kg of mineralized material from 17 different drill holes was collected for the test work. Aliquots from seven of the variability samples were blended into a homogenized Master Composite totaling 91.8kg and grading 111g/t Ag, 0.24% Cu, 1.3% Pb and 5.8% Zn. A locked-cycle test was conducted that was based on an open circuit flowsheet established in the earlier batch test work. The locked cycle test produced a robust assessment of final lead and zinc concentrates. Owing to the lower copper content of the Master Composite, a larger scale batch cleaner test was conducted to establish the copper metallurgy. Results from the locked-cycle test were combined with the copper cleaner test work to create an overall metallurgical projection for the Skarn Front composite. Projected recoveries and grades from the Skarn Front composite are: 83.6% Pb and 77.3% Ag into the lead concentrate which assays 65.1% Pb and 5,504g/t Ag respectively after three stage of cleaning; and 94.7% Zn and 8.0% Ag into the zinc concentrate which assays 54.0% Zn and 92g/t Ag respectively after three stages of cleaning; 60.2% Cu and 6.5% Ag recovered into the copper concentrate which assays 27.0% Cu and 1,255g/t Ag respectively after three stages of cleaning.