Prize Mining and Eagle Plains Complete Ramp-Up to Commercial Production Yellowjacket Gold Project

By Sam Kiri

In a market fraught with uncertainties it is always encouraging to see companies that are marching towards commercial production. In what could be a similar situation, Canadian Venture listed Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: EPL) together with Prize Mining Corp. (TSX.V: PRZ) has now completed commissioning and test work at on its mill facility at the Yellowjacket Gold Project located near Atlin, BC. This marks a considerable improvement in the company and its investment case as investors have shown considerable preference towards producing companies. EPL currently owns 40% of the project and with the option to increase to 60%.

A variety of material stockpiled by PRZ in 2008 has now passed through the mill and represents a spectrum of hardness, mineralogy and grade in order to properly tune the facility. Production rates have confirmed a mill capacity of 350 tonnes per day. Processing of this material was completed under an existing Bulk Sampling Exploration Permit. Full-scale bedrock mining and milling operations will commence upon receipt of a Provincial Mines Act Permit, which is expected shortly.

Meanwhile, gold assay results for three selected high-grade blocks appear to be encouraging. Conveyor cut assays returned grades as high as 466g/t (Block A27), 313.7g/t (Block B27) and 431.4g/t (Block C21). Average grades from Block A27, Block B27 and Block C21 are 30.46g/t, 45.5g/t and 14.01g/t respectively. Tailing assays yielded average gold grades of 1.1g/t (Block A27), 3.44g/t (Block B27) and 1.21g/t (Block C21).

Metallurgical test work and plant engineering designs show that expected gravity concentration gold recoveries will be between 73% and 80%. Using ratios of average gold in tailings compared to average total gold values in conveyor cut assays, it appears that the gold loss to tailings is well within the targeted acceptable recovery range. On-going studies will be conducted to improve recoveries.

From the assay results the extreme "nugget effect" of the deposit is immediately apparent as seen by the very high grade assay values obtained in individual samples collected from these selected high grade blocks - as compared to the lowest and average values. Additional assay results for other elements and concentrate recoveries are still pending.

As EPL continues to make strides towards production, the company is expected a re-rating by the market. In addition to the Yellowjacket project EPL has a diverse prospect portfolio which provides exposure to several different minerals from gold to molybdenum. EPL appears to be an interesting story to follow.

www.proactiveinvestors.com