Poised to become a mid-tier gold producer

Great Basin Gold’s Nevada operations consist of the Hollister Property in the northern part of the Carlin Trend belt and the Esmeralda Property located in the south-west close to the border between Nevada and California. Surface exploration efforts at Hollister have resulted in the discovery of several high-grade epithermal gold-silver vein systems on the property. The main vein systems, called Clementine and Gwenivere, have been accessed by a decline and underground development for geological and resource confirmation and trial extraction of mineral resources; the development also provides staging for the ongoing exploration and development drilling that is in progress.

The environmental impact statement (EIS) process for the Hollister Project is currently underway by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The completion of the EIS process and receipt of BLM approval for the amended Plan of Operations is forecasted for Q1 2012. The underground exploration and development activities at the Hollister Property have a limit of 275,000 ore tons per year, set out in the Water Pollution Control Permit issued by the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP).The operations must be conducted in a manner that aims to fully protect the environment and archaeological resources near the development and will not create any additional surface disturbance or significant new environmental impacts.

The Esmeralda Property is located approximately 290 miles (467 km) from the Hollister Property with 80% of the distance over paved roads. Ore extracted through trial mining activities at Hollister is trucked to Esmeralda for metallurgical processing. The property consists of patented and unpatented mining claims, fee lands, water rights and a refurbished mill, which achieved a new milling record in Q4 2010 with 27,553 tons milled. The mill has been optimized to achieve a consistent mill throughput of 350 tons/day for ore containing metal in excess of 1.1 Au Eqv oz/ton. Other features of Esmeralda include crushing facilities, stockpile areas, waste rock facilities and roads.