Northern Russia showing sparkle for Silver Bear

Vancouver – In its third year exploring the Mangazeisky silver project in northeast Russia Silver Bear Resources (SBR-T) pulled some short, high-grade intercepts out the of ground, indicating potential for the Vertikalny vein to carry a considerable resource.

The 2008 exploration program at Mangazeisky focused on the Vertikalny vein, with drilled and trenching aimed at delineating an initial resource. The vein, which strikes northwest-southeast, has now been traced for 5.1 km strike.

At the north end of the vein, hole 37A hit 824 grams silver over 4.8 metres, from 207 metres depth. An intercept from hole 36, situated 100 metres above, returned 457 grams silver over 6.8 metres.

A few hundred metres southeast, holes 66 and 64 confirmed the presence of a higher-grade lens measuring 200 metres along strike and 200 metres downdip. Hole 66 penetrated the north side of the lens and returned 667 grams silver over 8.8 metres starting 110 metres downhole, while hole 64 cut 6.3 metres grading 342 grams silver on the south side.

Continuing southeast along strike, hole 63 returned the highest-grade intercept of the recent lot: 1,639 grams silver per tonne over 5.6 metres, starting 183 metres downhole. The intercept came from 50 metre below a 4.3-metre intercept grading 1,552 grams silver from hole 40.

Near the middle of the delineated zone hole 47 cut 640 grams silver over 4.3 metres, from 131 metres depth. In the 2007 drill program hole 2 returned 6 metres grading 30 grams silver from 100 metres above. And a few hundred metres from the southeast end of the zone hole 62 cored 3.9 metres grading 502 grams silver, from 141metres downhole.

The strong silver results from this year’s exploration efforts prompted Silver Bear to plan a 40,000-metre drill program for 2009. In light of the current global financial situation, however, the company has already scaled that plan back to 10,000 metres.

Despite spending close to $12 million on exploration in the first nine months of 2008 Silver Bear still holds $28.7 million in cash and cash equivalents, meaning it is still well-financed to continue exploring Mangazeisky.

In addition to over 31,000 metres of drilling Silver Bear completed an induced polarization-magnetotelluric resistivity survey at Vertikalny. Results are currently being interpreted. And exploration crews conducted almost 70 km of mapping and geochemical sampling within the Mangazeisky project area, which covers 570 sq. km. The work focused on tracing the Vertikalny structure to the northwest as well as evaluating two similar structures in the area, known as the Zabytiy and Kis-Kuelskiy targets.

The large Mangazeisky project, which is part of the Republic of Sakha in northeastern Russia, hosts 16 known silver occurrences. Silver Bear took the project on in late 2004 and has since drilled almost 13,000 metres and spent close to $10 million.

In order to keep the Mangazeisky licence in good standing Silver Bear is required to produce a resource estimate in 2009. The company expects to do so in the first quarter of the year.

In July the company announced that Alfa Group, one of Russia’s largest privately-owned financial-industrial conglomerates, had bought another 1.5 million shares of Silver Bear for $4.5 million. The private placement brought Alfa Group’s interest in Silver Bear to 7.4 million common shares, or 19.5%.

Silver Bear listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in late 2007, completing a $30-million initial purchase offering comprising 10 million shares at $3 a piece. An overallotment brought total proceeds to $32.1 million. The company is currently trading at just over 40¢ and has 38 million shares issued.