VIRGINIA CITY, Nev., March 5, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- GoldSpring, Inc. (OTCBB:GSPG): GoldSpring's Direct Electrowinning (EMEW) gold and silver metals recovery plant announced on February 23rd it has arrived at the Plum Mining Cyanide heap leach facility and is in the final stage of set-up. This addition enables recovery capacity to exceed 100 oz gold and 200 oz silver per day. The Company expects this plant to be fully operational by March 15th. The simplicity of this system and its ability to recover gold at a cost of about $0.10 per ounce at this level of capacity is very good news for GoldSpring. The plant is modular and expandable and additional capacity to move to over 250 oz gold and 500 oz silver is being planned for early Q2 '04.
The process is simple: Leach solution pregnant with gold and silver metals is pumped 24 hours a day through the EMEW plant. Every day the automated system is automatically flushed, the recovered paste is compacted, placed into a kiln and Dore bars are made and stockpiled in a secure facility for shipment to the refinery. The security of the recovered metals is preserved at a much higher level than allowed by the original Merrill Crowe System already owned by the Company. The Company plans to sell its Merrill Crowe system and purchase additional EMEW cells to expand recovery capacity even further in 2004.
Technical representatives of Electrowinning International of Vancouver have been at Plum for the past week and a factory representative from Australia will arrive next week to oversee and finalize operations.
There are approximately 80,000 tons of mined ore at the stockpile and on the leach pad. Agglomeration and leach pad loading is being accomplished 24 hours a day, while mining is still being operated at 2,000-2,500 tons per day.
This same system will work on copper as well and is planned as the recovery system of choice for the Company's Big Mike Copper recovery project in Winnemucca, Nevada. Big Mike has 25 million pounds of already mined copper above ground and suitable for lacid leach recovery. The Company is pursuing an initial bulk testing program which leads the way for Q3 '04 planned production.
Further information will be forthcoming regarding ongoing corporate operations, acquisitions in progress and financing when available for publication.
Corporate & Investor Relations: Steve Parent 480.505.4040 Email: info@goldspring.us www.goldspring.us
Statements contained in this press release, which are not historical facts, are forward looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based largely on the Company's expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties beyond the company's control, including but not limited to economic, competitive and other factors affecting the Company's operations, management team effectiveness, expansion strategies, available financing, market prices and recovery costs, government regulations involving the Company, facts and events not known at the time of this release, and other factors discussed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements.