Paramount Gold and Silver posts quarterly loss

Paramount Gold and Silver Corp. of Winnemucca reported an operating loss of $3.9 million on revenues of $44,428 in the final quarter of 2011. A year earlier, the company posted an operating loss of $2.9 million and revenues of $203,646.

The company's primary focus is the Sleeper Gold Project in Humboldt County.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, the company said it expects to spend $6.3 million half of its total exploration budget for the year at Sleeper.

It will spend the other half of its exploration budget at a gold project in Mexico.

At the Sleeper GoldProject, Paramount is conducting exploration at a site that was operated by AMAX Gold as an open-pit mine from 1986 until 1996.

Although the mine produced 1.66 million ounces of gold and 2.3 million ounces of silver, Sleeper's geologists believe that less than half the gold on the property was mined.

And they believe that heap-leach pads at the mine may contain significant amounts of gold yet to be recovered.