After arriving onthe exploration scene in 2008 amid a wave of economic unrest, Argent executive chairman Kerry McHugh believes his company has recovered well against seemingly unbeatable odds.

"We listed at the start of the global economic crisis and launched into a sea of uncertainty as far as the Australian stock market was concerned," he said.

"Argent's prospectus had been released in January and the GFC started shortly after but we could not postpone the listing.

"It was a nervous time but we managed to raise $4 million with over 400 shareholders and fulfil the conditions of the listing.

"Our price was depressed forsome time but eventually recoveredin line with the climate and has hovered between 15 cents and 25 cents per share since then."

McHugh believes the price is low and does not reflect the value of the company's major project - the 100%-owned silver-lead-zinc Kempfield development, 29 kilometres south of Blayney in central-west New South Wales.

Kempfield contains more than 31 million ounces of silver, 260,000 tonnes of lead and zinc, 65,000oz of gold and more than 2Moz of baryte, all hosted within a 4km-long rich baryte horizon spread over six major zones.

Sitting at a market capitalisation of $21 million, McHugh expects Argent will be in line for a re-rating when Kempfield commences production in 2013.

"At this point in time, we are trading at a very low market capitalisation per ounce of silver resource," he said.

"We have 31 million ounces of resource at Kempfield, which works out to a value of around 67 cents per ounce of silver.

"Some of the other silver producers in Australia by comparison, have a market capitalisation per ounce of resource in the dollars.

"We expect that as we move along the path to production - completing the feasibility study, arranging finance, gaining approvals, commencing construction and moving into commissioning and production - that the market will reward us with a re-rating of our share price and realise the true value of Argent. If this comes to pass as we hope it will, it will be a very good reward for our 450 shareholders."

The Kempfield project is located in the Lachlan Fold Belt - well known for being one of Australia's premier geological provinces and shared by big-name operators such as Newcrest Mining (with its Cadia-Ridgeway copper-gold discovery, incidentally the largest underground mine in the southern hemisphere), Rio Tinto (Northparkes copper find) and Barrick Gold Corporation (Cowal gold mine).

Kempfield was first drilled by Inco during the 1970s in a fruitless search for base metals targeting grades of 20%. The deposit was taken over in 2000 by GCR in recognition of its baryte and silver potential.

After substantial field work, GCR parked its exploration programs in light of continued low commodity prices until 2007, at which time Argent secured farm-in agreements for Kempfield and two other tenements - West Wyalong and Sunny Corner - with a view to an initial public offering.

"We believed there was very strong potential for additional resources to be discovered at all three project areas," McHugh said.

"By the time we had farmed in, commodity prices had improved and we were convinced that there would be the opportunity for an economic deposit if we could prove up sufficient resources and if the metallurgy was good enough.

"In the three years since listing, we have increased the resource at Kempfield quite substantially and now have a definitive feasibility study underway to produce silver, lead, zinc and some gold.

"It has been a bit of a punt but95 percent of publicly-listed exploration juniors are in risk territory and we are no different."

Hedging some of that risk is Argent's multi-commodity approach.

"We never set out to have a multi-mineral inventory," McHugh said.

"It was simply that we acquired three projects that we think have merit - West Wyalong is a standalone gold interest, while Sunny Corner and Kempfield are VMS [volcanogenic massive sulfide] deposits typically containing silver, lead, zinc, copper and gold.

"Kempfield is by far the best project we have and we are focused on getting it into production within the next two years."

An independent scoping studyinto Kempfield in April 2010 indicated the potential "for a robust mining project", featuring an open pit with a 10-year mine life at 600,000 tonnes per annum; payable production of 12Moz of silver, 42,000t of lead/zinc and 15,000oz of gold and a life-of-mine operating cost of $10.27 per ounce of silver.

By November 2010, the economics had changed for the better, with rising commodity prices increasing the project's forecast operating cashflow from $97 million to $251 million, based on a 600,000tpa throughput.

"Around 75 percent of ourrevenue at Kempfield will come from silver and another 5 percent from gold so the vast bulk will be in the form of precious metals which, in times of global uncertainty, hold their price very well," McHugh said.

"Around 25 percent of revenue will come from lead and zinc, which is pretty useful to have as a backstop to help cushion any weakness in the silver price."

Used in many industrial applications including electronics, continued global demand for silveris pushing prices much higher than in recent times.

"The price of silver is very high at around $35 per ounce, compared to $15 per ounce when we floated, and prospects for its continued elevation are good," McHugh said.

"Silver fell dramatically duringthe GFC, along with copper and lead-zinc, but since then it has been resurrected as a potential hedge against currency instabilities.

"The potential for high prices to continue means that projects which might have been uneconomic in the past - and Kempfield was certainly in that class - could be quite profitable today."

With less than two years until targeted start-up, McHugh said his team was focused on the completion of the project's $2.5 million definitive feasibility study, with regulatory approvals to be granted soon after.

Subject to the success of those approvals, Kempfield will progress towards project financing, after which it will be full steam ahead towards the 2013 finishing line.

"We have a very confident management team at the moment,"he said.

"There have been no red lights with the study so far and we are progressing down that road at the rate we had hoped.

"We hope to bring Kempfield into production on time and budget with a decade's mine life at a maximum 1.5 million tonnes per annum throughput.

"The three major zones are open at depth and the lead-zinc grades seem to be increasing at depth so the project's exploration and extension potential are very favourable."

*A version of this report, first published in the August 2011 edition of RESOURCESTOCKS magazine, was commissioned by Argent Minerals