Starfield advances Ferguson Lake (November 27, 2006)

Vancouver — In wrapping up its 2006 drilling program at the Ferguson Lake copper-nickel-platinum group metals project located 240 km west of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Starfield Resources (SRU-V, SRFDF-O) has focused on delineating a potential open-pit area on the West zone.

Drilling along a 4.2-km section of the West zone has now identified an indicated resource of 8.7 million tonnes grading 0.93% copper, 0.67% nickel, 0.08% cobalt, 1.47 grams palladium per tonne and 0.21 gram platinum, using a 1% copper plus nickel cutoff grade. The recently updated resource estimate also reviewed an additional 66.1 million inferred tonnes of 1.02% copper, 0.6% nickel, 0.069% cobalt, 1.43 grams palladium and 0.25 gram platinum using the same cutoff grade.

Having closed a $16.5-million financing this spring, Starfield has completed 110 of 116 drill holes on Ferguson Lake in 2006, totalling about 24,000 metres. Results will be incorporated into a project-wide resource update in 2007. Starfield president and CEO Glen Indra described the latest program as “an important transition point.”

The company’s recent focus has been on upgrading inferred resources to the indicated and measured category.

“The next stage will be to increase the global resources of the project as a basis for economic assessment studies,” Indra says. “Major magmatic nickel-copper-platinum group metal deposits the size of Ferguson Lake are rare and difficult to find globally.”

Hydrometallurgical testing on three separate areas of the West zone sulphide mineralization is also under way to ascertain grindability, flotation-concentrate production and a PlatSol process evaluation of “hydrometallurgically produced” concentrate. Base and precious metals recovery data will be used in an economic assessment.

PlatSol is a proprietary, high-temperature and pressure oxidation process, initially developed for PolyMet Mining (POM-V, PLM-X), which allows a one-step dissolution of base and precious metals from a sulphide concentrate.

Mineralization at Ferguson Lake was first discovered in 1950 by Inco (N-T), now part of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (RIO-N). Starfield acquired the project in 1999 and has drilled about 132,000 metres of core on the deposit.

Base and precious metal mineralization occurs in a layered igneous complex. The main host is a fine to coarse-grained gabbro unit. Advanced geophysical surveys by Starfield have delineated the sulphide-bearing target over 19 km of strike and confirmed mineralization over a 4.4-km portion.

In addition to the exploration push, the company has also advanced development of the project, building a new, all-season base camp and surveying a proposed airstrip. Baseline socio-environmental studies have been conducted on the project in preparation for a mining lease application.

Starfield has 164.5 million shares outstanding, giving the issue a $39-million market capitalization at its recent trading level of 24 per share. The stock has a 52-week price range of 21-64.