Minera IRL Announces Plans to Produce 200,000 Ounces of Gold Per Year

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Industrial Info Research Latinoamérica (Córdoba, Argentina) attended the third EXPOMINA Peru, one of the most important mining trade shows in Latin America, with more than 400 exhibiting companies and approximately 12,000 visitors. EXPOMINA Peru took place on September 8-10, in Lima, Peru. During one of the technical conferences presented in the trade show, Mr. Diego Benavides, the president of Minera IRL SA (Lima), a subsidiary of Minera IRL Limited (Lima), stated that the company hopes to achieve annual gold production of 200,000 ounces by 2015. By this time, in addition to the Peruvian Corihuarmi gold mine, the company expects to be operating the Don Nicolas mine in Argentina and the Ollachea mine in the south of Peru.

Currently, Minera IRL SA operates the 30,000-ounce-per-year Corihuarmi open-pit gold mine, located 160 kilometers south of Lima. The Corihuarmi gold mine started operations in March 2008 and required a capital investment of about $20 million. The company is working to increase ore reserves to extend the mine's life, which is currently expected to last until 2015.

In Argentina, the company, through its wholly owned subsidiary Compania Minera IRL Patagonia SA (Buenos Aires, Argentina), is advancing an economic evaluation on the Don Nicolas gold mine project, acquired in the end of 2009 through the takeover of Hidefield Gold plc. The project is located in the Santa Cruz province, in the Patagonia region south of Argentina. Don Nicolas has a NI43-101-compliant resource study showing indicated resources of 202,700 ounces of gold. Mr. Benavides anticipated in the conference good results at the Escondido exploration zone, which will significantly increase resources at the Don Nicolas project. The mine is expected to produce an average of 60,000 ounces of gold per year and start operations by the end of 2012. At that moment, Don Nicolas and the operational Corihuarmi gold mine produce a combined 100,000 ounces of gold per year.

Subsequently, Minera IRL plans to use the cash generated from the start of operations at the Don Nicolas gold mine to fund almost 50% of the development plan to construct its third mine in south of Peru, known as Ollachea. The Ollachea gold mine project entails the construction of an underground mine and a conventional carbon in leach treatment plant to produce approximately 117,000 ounces of gold per year for nine years. Currently, the company is advancing a prefeasibility study that is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2011. The Ollachea mine is scheduled to start operations by the end of 2014.

With Ollacheas startup operations, Minera IRL will reach a production of more than 200,000 ounces of gold per year until 2014. The company also owns other early-stage exploration projects in Peru, such as the Bethania project, located 10 kilometers from the Corihuarmi mine and the Killincho and Quilavira projects, both in southern Peru.

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