American Bonanza cuts more high-grade gold at Copperstone

Vancouver – Now more than halfway through its 40,000-metre drill program, American Bonanza Gold Mining (BZA-V) is encountering further high-grade gold intercepts at its wholly-owned Copperstone project in La Paz Cty., Arizona.

Confirmation drilling, with 132 drill holes totaling 22,650 metres now complete, continues to intersect significant gold mineralized zones and prove up project resources.

Underground core drilling, focused on upgrading D-zone indicated and inferred resources to measured resources and reserves, is two-thirds through the planned program of about 7,000 metres in 76 holes. Results include:

• Hole DU4-43 The core hole intersected 3.6 metres (at 35.5 metres downhole depth) grading 5.8 grams gold per tonne and 0.3% copper;
• Hole DU4-45 A 1.5-metre intercept (from 41 metres) returned 10.1 grams gold, further down-hole, a 1 metre section averaged 14.7 grams gold followed by other intersections of 5-6 grams gold over 0.5-1 metre;
• Hole DU4-50 A 1.5 metre high-grade section assaying 54 grams gold was encountered at 20 metres down-hole, the intersection also ran 0.3% copper.

These D-zone holes were located to test the northern boundary of gold mineralization and to ascertain structural components of the local geology.

Confirmation and expansion drilling of the Highwall zone also delivered significant, high-grade gold intercepts. About half of the planned 100 holes have been completed on the zone, with over 12,700-metres of core extracted. The targeted area is located north of the main open pit and southeast of the C and D-zones. The latest drill results include:

• Hole H4-36 An intercept of 9.4 metres (from 260 metres) returned 13.1 grams gold and 1% copper, including a 3 metre high-grade section averaging 35.2 grams gold and 1.5% copper, and further down hole, a 0.8-metre interval ran 3% copper;
• Hole H4-43 Another high-grade section assayed 15.8 grams gold and 0.8% copper over 7.6 metres (from 217 metres), including 3 metres of 38.2 grams gold and 0.6% copper.

These Highwall intercepts all cut the targeted structure nearly perpendicular, resulting in very close to true thicknesses.

Gold mineralization at the deposit occurs in the sheared and altered Copperstone fault zone within a volcano-sedimentary sequence.

Copperstone was a former open-pit producer, operated by Cyprus Minerals (now part of Phelps Dodge (PD-N)) from 1987-1992, with total output of about 500,000 oz. gold. The average grade was 3.8 grams gold.

A preliminary assessment report conducted in 1999 reviewed an indicated resource of 809,000 tonnes grading 11 grams gold per tonne on the C and D-zones. An additional inferred resource of 1.08 million tonnes of 12 grams gold was also outlined.

American Bonanza expects to make a production decision on Copperstone in 2005.

The company also recently entered into a planned merger with International Taurus Resources (ITS-V) that holds a portfolio of gold projects in northwestern Quebec, northern Ontario and British Columbia. The advanced-stage Fenelon high-grade gold project in the Casa Berardi area of Quebec is undergoing test mining and reserve definition on zones of near surface mineralization. An agreement is also in place with Fairstar Explorations (FFR-T) which will see its 38% interest in Fenelon pulled into the new company for 6.5 million new shares and a payment of $300,000.

American Bonanza currently has 188 million shares outstanding, giving a market capitalization of about $36-million at its recent trading level of 19 per share.