Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SSRI) recently sold several of its assets, measures largely seen as designed to unlock value in non-core assets and strengthen the balance sheet. One of the recently completed transactions was a sale of two projects in Argentina.

Silver Standard announced that it completed the sale of its Diablillos and M-18 projects in Argentina to a company called Huayra Minerals Corporation. The transaction yielded $14 million for the company, to be paid over a period of five years, and nearly 20% equity interest in Huayra.

The other asset transaction recently completed by Silver Standard was the sale of its Parral properties in Mexico to a company called Endeavour Silver Corp (NYSE:EXK). The sale yielded Silver Standard $6 million in shares of Endeavour, which it described as a mid-tier precious metals company with operations in Mexico focused on exploration, development and operation of mines.

Though the transactions are not head-turning on the basis of their dollar value, whittling down of non-core assets has a longer-term benefit for the company.

Record production

Ahead of the release of quarterly earnings, Silver Standard has a practice of updating on its production performance. The company said it produced 112,559 gold equivalent ounces in 3Q16, backed by strong performance at the Seabee Gold mine. The company produced 20,142 ounces of gold at the mine, bringing it closer to its annual target of between 70,000 and 73,000 ounces in 2016.

Silver Standard reached record silver production at its Pirquitas mine, producing 3.04 million ounces of silver, bringing it closer to its annual production target of 9-10 million ounces. At the Marigold mine, Silver Standard produced 47,456 ounces of gold and it is expecting production in the range of 200,000 and 210,000 ounces for 2016. Production at Marigold mine is expected to accelerate in the current as the company just recently completed construction of a new leach pad.

3Q16 earnings

Silver Standard is set to release its 3Q16 earnings later day. In the prior quarter, the company posted EPS of $0.25 on revenue of $118.77 million. The results beat the consensus estimates by a reasonable margin.