Rochester poised for production at Mina Real

Vancouver – The steady progress of contract development mining has Rochester Resources (RCT-V, RCTFF-O) confidant that it will be able to achieve commercial production by November of this year at its Mina Real gold-silver project in Nayarit State, Mexico.

The 3,400-hectare project covers a low-sulphidation epithermal gold-silver system comprised of quartz veins and quartz breccia with iron and manganese oxides. The initial operation will exploit three parallel vein structures known as Florida 1, 2 and 3, which had about 1,500 metres of drift development work completed before the 2006 work program was launched earlier this year.

Contract development mining began in April at an estimated rate of 2,500 tonnes per month, with ore being stockpiled in preparation for mill startup later this fall. In June of this year, the company received the necessary environmental approvals and permits to begin constructing the cyanidation processing plant and related infrastructure.

Mina Real will be a modest-sized operation with a design capacity of 300 tonnes per day, and starting at an initial rate of 200 tonnes per day. The current mine plan calls for development of the Florida triple vein structure on four levels, which equates to an area averaging more than 125 metres vertically and 225 metres laterally.

Rochester recently completed the first phase of its plan to bring the mine into production, which included a channel-sampling program carried out on several levels of Florida 3. Assay results received to date returned an average grade of 12.10 grams gold and 232.25 grams silver per tonne, or 16.7 grams gold-equivalent, over 290 metres of drift development and a width of 1.09 metres.

A second phase of the 2006 work program has been initiated and will duplicate the development work carried out on three levels of Florida 3 into Florida 2 and 1. This phase of work will also include a short-hole underground diamond drill program.

Rochester has earned a 40% interest in the project and can earn another 11% by paying option payments of US$900,000. The company is negotiating to acquire the remaining 49% interest.