Miramar’s Boston drilling exceeds expectations

Vancouver – Good news follows bad for Miramar Mining’s (MAE-T) wholly owned Hope Bay gold project near Bathurst Inlet, Nunavut.

Little more than three weeks after being notified of a delay in permitting for the Doris North gold deposit, Miramar released drill results from the Boston deposit that have shown impressive gold values.

The Boston drill program’s two objectives were: to upgrade the confidence level of the inferred resource below the existing underground workings, and to test and develop deeper gold mineralization. Both of the tasks have been met with excellent results.

Infill drilling on the measured and inferred Boston resource (1.4 million tonnes grading 15.4 grams gold per tonne) has consisted of eight holes to date, of a planned 15. The program will reduce drill hole spacing to about 50 metre centres, increasing the confidence level of the calculations. The results have exceeded the company’s expectations and include:

• Hole S04-304 An intersection of 6.6 metres (from 410.6 metres) averaging 21.7 grams gold per tonne, including 2.9 metres of 47.4 grams gold;
• Hole S04-308 A broader intercept of 23.4 metres (from 304.4 metres) grading 7.3 grams gold, including two separate 1.4 metres sections assayed at 33.9 and 21.1 grams gold;
• Hole S04-309 The core returned a 12.4 metre section (from 374.4 metres) of 9.3 grams gold, including 5.6 metres of 18.7 grams.

Boston deep drilling has provided Miramar with significant intersections of gold mineralization, illustrating the depth potential of the system and aiding in its geologic understanding. All holes have encountered broad zones of alteration and quartz veining. Results include:

• Hole S04-300W The hole returned a 5.8 metres intersections (from 918.7 metres) grading 7.1 grams gold, including 1.3 metres of 17.6 grams;
• Hole S04-301 This master/pilot hole cut 2.8 metres of a high-grade zone (from 1,099.7 metres) averaging 32.7 grams, including a section of 1.8 metres of 50 grams. Visible gold was abundant in the core. This hole will be used for drilling of multiple offsets. Additional assays are pending.
• Hole S04-310 A 10.3 metre section (from 664.5 metres) intersected 8.7 grams, including 9 metres of 9.9 grams.

Miramar’s deep drilling program has demonstrated the depth extent of the gold mineralizing system, increasing the potential of extending the Boston resource below its current boundary.

Elsewhere on Miramar’s Hope Bay land package, the company has offloaded its exploration effort on the Twin Peaks and Eastern Contacts areas. Maximus Ventures (MXV-V) has an agreement to earn up to 75% interest in the projects for expenditures of $7.5 million over three years. Miramar has a back-in right to reacquire 50% of the project and operatorship by paying back Maximus 150% of its expenditures. Maximus will also be issuing up to 9 million shares to Miramar, staged upon specific parameters being met.

The agreement allows Miramar to focus on advancing its production aspirations at Hope Bay while maximizing the exploration effort on other highly prospective targets in the belt.

The Twin Peaks and Eastern Contacts areas have several known occurrences of high-grade, vein hosted gold mineralization with multi-ounce per ton grab samples, and have also demonstrated large scale bulk-tonnage potential.

Miramar’s Hope Bay project consists of over 1000 sq. km situated on the Arctic coast near Bathurst Inlet, Nunavut. The project consists of three deposits, the Doris, Madrid and Boston that have a combined resource of 5.4 million ounces of gold. Permitting is under way on the Doris North deposit with production anticipated in 2006.

As of the latest report, Miramar has 152 million shares outstanding.