First Point cuts Rio Luna high-grade (May 31, 2004)

Vancouver – Drilling by First Point Minerals (FPX-V) on the Rio Luna gold project in Nicaragua has returned encouraging grades grades.

The company is ramping up its drilling program on the gold-bearing epithermal system, increasing the number of holes to more than 25 (from 15) totalling about 3000 metres.

The latest holes intersected high-grade gold in quartz veins. Hole 21 cut 2.9 metres (from 58.8 metres) grading 39.75 grams gold per tonne, including 1.59 metres of 68.22 grams gold, whereas hole 22 intersected the vein about 40 metres downdip from the previous hole and returned 2.29 metres averaging 30.58 grams gold, including 1.19 metres of 57.62 grams.

“We are very pleased with those [results],” says First Point President Christopher Mitchell. “That’s the sort of thing we’ve been looking for. Based on some trenching results, we thought we’d eventually find something like that.”

The recent holes were the first to test the deeper extent of the targets at Rio Luna. Earlier, the company had uncovered positive values of near-surface gold mineralization at four targets: Balsamo, Balsamo East, Santa Rita and El Rodeo.

The Rio Luna project hosts multiple, gold-bearing epithermal vein structures in andesites over an area of several square kilometres. The principal mineralized structure, which has been extensively trenched, is about 5 km long and two to 10 metres in width.

First Point is earning a 100% interest in the project from Terra Nova Resources, a private company.

Investors appreciated the results, pushing the share price up 58% to 26 on a volume of 993,600 shares at presstime. The company has 31.2 million shares outstanding.