Minera Andes Inc. (TSX:MAI) discovers 7.5 kilometres of new new high-grade silver/gold veins at its San Jose Mine, Argentina, during exploratory drilling in 2010, the company reported on Thursday.

The new veins represent a 44% increase in the cumulative strike length of all veins known at the mine at the end of 2009. In addition, drilling in 2010 through September 30th produced a doubling of the inferred mineral resource, as previously reported on November 22, 2010. The new veins are located within the area of the existing San José mining operations between the Kospi and Frea veins, and access for the new veins will be developed from existing underground mine workings. The discoveries are the result of a significant increase in the exploration effort at San José compared to previous years.

“These drill results demonstrate that the area in and around the San José mine is extremely prospective,” said Chair and CEO Rob McEwen, adding:

“We are eagerly awaiting the results of the ongoing exploration drilling in and outside the mine area. The recent $3.6 billion acquisition of Andean Resources’ for its nearby Cerro Negro property by Goldcorp Inc. highlights the world class potential of this emerging gold/silver district.”

Minera Andes has a 49% interest in Minera Santa Cruz SA, owner of the San Jose Mine, which lies in close proximity to Goldcorp’s Cerro Negro project. The company also owns the Los Azules copper deposit with an inferred mineral resource of 10.3 billion pounds of copper and an indicated resource of 2.2 billion pounds of copper.

The company has USD$31 million in its treasury and no debt. McEwen owns 31% of the shares.

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Carapateena spectacular discovery by a Canadian company Teck Resources are seen as the big foreign players to the global financial crisis, now its ownership changed hands to OZ Minerals Ltd (ASX: OZL).

OZ Minerals said today it had paid $US240 million for the project, making an immediate deposit of $US10 M.

Ownership was given as 58% held by engineer Rudy Gomez, 34% by Teck Australia with the balance of 8% held by various minorities.

Teck had made Carrapateena its major new foreign project after Gomez in 2005 had mortgaged assets to utilise a South Australian drilling grant to produce a spectacular long copper intersection. This saw a Teck official camped on Gomez's doorstep.

Stepped up exploration by Teck produced some enormous copper gold hits, including one of 905 metres grading 2.17% copper and significant gold within which there was a section of 84m @ 4.78% Cu and 1.1 grams/tonne gold.

However, along came the global financial crisis that hit Teck hard and stalled its exploration expenditure and saw overtures begin last year for the sale of the project.

Acquisition of Carrapateena is a good fit for OZ Minerals, as it is cashed up and earning a big cash flow from the Prominent Hill copper-gold project. It is 250 kilometres south east of Prominent Hill.

Despite its perfomance and recent profit announcement, OZ Minerals has been criticised by some Australian analysts for not taking available acquisitions, and also for not getting strong exploration results from holdings and joint ventures near Prominent Hill - an amazing complaint, given the fact most regional search issues are less than two years old with targets being under deep soil cover.

OZ Minerals chief executive Terry Burgess said Carrapateena is one of the largest undeveloped copper projects in Australia and has the potential to produce between 50,000 and 150,000 tonnes per annum of copper "for a significant mine life."

Carrapateena is a new monster project in the far north of South Australia which has produced Prominent Hill and the world-class Olympic Dam which is one of the world's biggest copper deposits and dominates world uranium resources.

The project is 130 km north of the Spencer Gulf port of Port Augusta and is 100 km south east of BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam. It is also only about 75 km from Stuart Highway and is also near the main northern railway.

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When a company changes its name, commentators are often tempted to wonder which part of its past it’s trying to move on from. However, in the case of Gold Road Resources, the change of name from Eleckra Mines, which took place in November 2010, was more of an attempt to provide investors with a better best description of the company’s activities. All being well, Gold Road Resources has now travelled some way down the road to gold production, on what could turn out to be the fourth major gold-rich shear zone on the eastern end of the famous Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia.

Gold Road owns tenements over the 5,000 square kilometres on the Yamarna greenstone belt on the Yilgarn, and the current focus is on two mineralised trends within this structure, Central Bore and Attila. These trends are located 3.7 kilometres apart and, if developed, the ore from both would be processed at a central facility. And on these trends, several prospects stand out, including Central Bore, Justinian, Byzantium and Hann on the Central Bore trend, and Attila, Alaric and Khan on the Attila trend.

Attila currently boasts a JORC resource of 19.8 million tonnes at a grade of 1.44 grams of gold per tonne, giving 917,000 ounces of gold. But that resource has remained unchanged since September 2008, even though Gold Road has been working hell-for-leather in the district in the intervening period. And that’s because there’s more to this district than meets the eye.

Since the last resource numbers came out from Attila, Gold Road has instead made Central Bore the focus. Central Bore has already been the subject of four drilling programmes, and a maiden JORC resource is now due imminently, in March, and is awaited with eager anticipation. But that won’t be the last word as far as resources are concerned. Far from it. The company has an extensive drilling programme planned for 2011. A minimum of 65,000 metres of drilling will occur across four of the leading prospects, including Attila and Central Bore, but also including Justinian and Hann.

A quick look at the Gold Road website offers a clear indication of the company’s thinking. On the home page is an illustration of the major gold belts on the Yilgarn. The belts run roughly north to south, and progress from west to east, looking at it from a Gold Road point of view, starting with the Southern Cross Belt, moving through the Kalgoorlie Norseman Belt, and on through Leonora and Laverton to Yamarna. Whether Yamarna is the next major gold belt on the Yilgarn remains to be seen, but a join-the-dots exercise on the showings the company has already got, clearly makes a lot of sense. Of the Yilgarn gold belts, Kalgoorlie Norseman hosts the most ounces, at a whopping 120 million, while Southern Cross hosts the least, at a (relatively) paltry 10 million.


Gold Road has, in its former guise as Eleckra, long been a proselytizer for the region. But now it seems academia is catching up. Having previously been considered too young to contain major mineralised anomalies, a renewed interest in the Yamarna Belt arose after the October 2010 publication of a reassessment of the area by The Geological Survey of Western Australia. This concluded that the Yamarna belt is older than was originally thought, and that it shares characteristics with the prolific Kalgoorlie Norseman belt. That’s one tick right there. But, perhaps hard cash speaks louder. So it’s also worth noting that the famous Tropicana gold mine, jointly owned by Independence and Anglo American lies to the south of Gold Road’s Yamarna holdings.

So it’ll be interesting to see what sort of results Gold Road can come up with this year, as the drilling campaign cranks up. It’s unlikely to find itself short of money, at any rate, given a gold price of US$1,300 and more, and the possibility that it’s opening up a new belt in a wider region with a prolific track record. But there’s no likelihood of the company tapping the market in the short term. As at 31st December 2010, Gold Road had a net cash position of A$10.9 million, but with 50 million deep in-the-money options out there, exercisable at A7 cents each, another A$3.5 million will soon come into account. These current cash reserves, along with the money from the options, should provide enough money to fund the company for the next 18 months.

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Silvercorp Metals Inc. (TSX: SVM)(NYSE: SVM)("Silvercorp" or the "Company") is pleased to report that its GC silver-lead-zinc project in the Guangdong Province has received a mining permit issued by the Ministry of Land and Resources of China. The GC mining permit has a term of 30 years and covers the entire 5.52 square kilometer area of the GC Project. The permit was issued on the terms applied for, and allows for the operation of an underground mine to produce silver, lead and zinc ores.

A qualified Chinese engineering firm is close to finalizing the design of a 1,500 tonne per day mechanized underground mine, a flotation mill, and a dry stack tailing facility. The estimated capital cost is about US$30 million. Following its completion, Silvercorp expects to convert the design report into a NI 43-101 qualified report. With the strong support of the local County government, Silvercorp has completed the acquisition of surface rights required for the construction of the mine and mill and is preparing the site and hiring contractors for the construction. Initial production of 700 tonnes per day mining capacity is expected to be achieved in 12 months with full capacity of 1,500 tonnes per day to be achieved in 18 months. The GC Project is held though a 95% owned Chinese subsidiary.

Receiving the GC Mining Permit represents an important step in Silvercorp's China expansion strategy beyond the Ying Mining camp in Henan Province:

-- creating production footholds in new areas,

-- establishing Silvercorp's reputation for production expertise and
efficiency in the new camp; and

-- build through production increases and potential consolidation of other
nearby mining assets.


Silvercorp intends to rapidly establish the GC Project in Guangdong Province as its second production base and foothold, to be followed by a third production foothold at the recently acquired BYP Gold-lead-Zinc Project in Hunan Province.

About Silvercorp Metals Inc.

Silvercorp Metals Inc. is engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and mining of high-grade silver-related mineral properties in China and Canada. Silvercorp is the largest primary silver producer in China through the operation of the four silver-lead-zinc mines at the Ying Mining Camp in the Henan Province of China. The Company has applied for a mining permit for its GC silver-lead-zinc mine in the Guangdong Province and recently announced the acquisition of a 70% interest in the BYP gold-lead-zinc mine in Hunan province. In Canada, Silvercorp is in preparation of applying for a Small Mine Permit for the Silvertip high grade silver-lead-zinc mine project in northern British Columbia to provide a further platform for growth and geographic diversification. The Company's shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange and are included as a component of the S&P/TSX Composite and the S&P/TSX Global Mining Indexes.

CAUTIONARY DISCLAIMER -- FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain of the statements and information in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian provincial securities laws. Any statements or information that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects", "is expected", "anticipates", "believes", "plans", "projects", "estimates", "assumes", "intends", "strategies", "targets", "goals", "forecasts", "objectives", "budgets", "schedules", "potential" or variations thereof or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements or information. Forward-looking statements or information relate to, among other things: the price of silver and other metals; the accuracy of mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates at the Company's material properties; the sufficiency of the Company's capital to finance the Company's operations; estimates of the Company's revenues and capital expenditures; estimated production from the Company's mines in the Ying Mining Camp; timing of receipt of permits and regulatory approvals; availability of funds from production to finance the Company's operations; and access to and availability of funding for future construction, use of proceeds from any financing and development of the Company's properties.

Forward-looking statements or information are subject to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements or information, including, without limitation, risks relating to: fluctuating commodity prices; calculation of resources, reserves and mineralization and precious and base metal recovery; interpretations and assumptions of mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates; exploration and development programs; feasibility and engineering reports; permits and licences; title to properties; First Nations title claims and rights; property interests; joint venture partners; acquisition of commercially mineable mineral rights; financing; recent market events and conditions; economic factors affecting the Company; timing, estimated amount, capital and operating expenditures and economic returns of future production; integration of future acquisitions into the Company's existing operations; competition; operations and political conditions; regulatory environment in China and Canada; environmental risks; foreign exchange rate fluctuations; insurance; risks and hazards of mining operations; key personnel; conflicts of interest; dependence on management; internal control over financial reporting as per the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; and bringing actions and enforcing judgments under U.S. securities laws.

This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of the Company's forward-looking statements or information. Forward-looking statements or information are statements about the future and are inherently uncertain, and actual achievements of the Company or other future events or conditions may differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements or information due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors, including, without limitation, those referred to in the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended March 31, 2010 under the heading "Risk Factors". Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, described or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information.

The Company's forward-looking statements and information are based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management as of the date of this press release, and other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements and information if circumstances or management's assumptions, beliefs, expectations or opinions should change, or changes in any other events affecting such statements or information. For the reasons set forth above, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information.

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