Northern Peru drills higher grades at Hilorico (September 11, 2007)

Vancouver – The latest drilling by Northern Peru Copper (NOC-T, NPUCF-O) on its Hilorico gold project in northwestern Peru’s Yanacocha district has tapped into some of the highest gold grades encountered to date.

HR-07-31 was drilled as a deep step-out hole on the southern margin of the deposit and cut 122.6 metres (from 111.4 metres down-hole) grading 1.57 grams gold per tonne and 13.6 grams silver per tonne in brecciated quartzites with a sulphide matrix, and included a 40-metre interval averaging 3.09 grams gold and 7.9 grams silver.

Another hole, HR-06-29, intersected 6.8 metres (from 17.8 metres) of oxide mineralization grading 10 grams gold and 6.9 grams silver including a 2-metre section of 26.5 grams gold. Deeper down the hole, wider intervals of sulphide mineralization were encountered and returned up to 66 metres of 1.6 grams gold and 5.5 grams silver.

Drilling also encountered significant sections of zinc mineralization including 4 metres of 4.5% zinc in hole HR-06-27 and 4 metres of 6.35% zinc in HR-06-30.

Hilorico is a high sulphidation epithermal gold system hosted in a siliciclastic sedimentary sequence. Gold mineralization is associated with feeder structures and breccia zones.

An inferred resource estimate of 19.4 million tonnes grading 0.65 gram gold and 3.3 grams silver has been tabled for the oxide zone using a 0.3 gram gold cut-off grade. The tally equates to about 407,000 contained oz. gold and just over 2 million contained oz. silver.

The sulphide zone contains about 21.3 million inferred tonnes at 0.93 gram gold and 4.8 grams silver using a 0.5 gram gold cut-off grade, for about 641,000 contained oz. gold and just over 3.3 million contained oz. silver.

The Hilorico gold deposit is located just one km from Northern Peru Coppers flagship Galeno copper-gold-molybdenum deposit that is undergoing a final bankable feasibility study.

Shares of Northern Peru Copper notched up 4% on the Hilorico gold intercepts, gaining 38 to close at an even $10.00 per share in September 11th trading. The stock has a 52-week trading range of $4.15-$12.60.