May 09, 2011 06:00 ET

Verde Potash Increases Drilled Surface Area by 2200% at Cerrado Verde

Intersecting above cut-off grade mineralization on 37 of 40 holes

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 9, 2011) - Verde Potash (TSX VENTURE:NPK) ("Verde" or the "Company") is pleased to report high grade, wide potash ("K2O") drill intersections from surface including 62m @ 10.3% K2O, 46m @ 10.4% K2O and 36m @ 11% K2O. Drilling has successfully extended high grade potash mineralization in all new targets (see figures 1 and 2 below) tested at the Cerrado Verde Potash Project, located in Minas Gerais State, Brazil.

Potash mineralization has been defined over an area approximately 100 x 10 km to date. Of the 26,000m of reverse circulation ("RC") drilling planned, 8,950m (143 holes) have been completed using three RC rigs drilling between a 200m to 400m spaced grid to determine the thickness and strike extent of the mineralization. So far, the Company has received results for 40 drill holes. A diamond core ("DC") drilling rig is also being utilized to enable structural and bulk density data to be collected along with twinning a number of RC holes with DC to validate the two drilling and sampling methods being utilized. Verde is also carrying out a program of detailed geological mapping over the entire area of potash rich rock occurrences covered by its mineral titles.

The Company expects to finalize drilling by the third quarter of 2011. The current program has two objectives: a) to significantly increase the tonnage and confidence of the current inferred resource estimate and b) to upgrade resources to a measured and indicated category sufficient to support a potential ThermoPotash operation with a mine life of 30 years under the 2.2 Million tonnes production scenario presented in SRK's Preliminary Economic Assessment filed with SEDAR on December 13, 2010.

Significant Results Returned from RC drilling

All the RC and DC samples have been screened by analysing with a portable Innov-X Delta X-ray fluorescence (XRF) gun on site. Samples showing >6% K2O are then sent to the SGS Laboratory located in Belo Horizonte ("SGS"). Verde also includes a comprehensive internal quality control program which includes analysing field duplicates, blanks and certified Geostats standards at a rate of 5%.

SGS has delivered the results for the first 40 RC drill holes. The results for Targets 4 and 6 (29 holes in the potash rock unit representing a surface area of 2.7 km2) and Target 7 (8 holes in the potash rock unit within an area of 18.0 km2) are presented below (a 7.5% K2O cut off has been applied). Out of 40 drill holes, only 3 showed grades below cut off. Previously, Verde's existing inferred resource of 105.1Mt grading 10.3% K2O using a 7.5% cut-off was drilled out over a surface area of 0.9 km2 (See Release March 8, 2010).

Commenting, President & CEO, Cristiano Veloso, said: "These encouraging results continue to support our belief that the area has the potential to become one of the world's largest and most unique potash deposits given its wide, high grade and continuous mineralization from surface. On behalf of Verde, I want to thank our Head of Exploration, Ysao Munemassa, and his team for the fantastic work being carried out at Cerrado Verde".

Previously, in 2009 and 2010, Verde carried out a RC drilling program with 19 holes for a total of 997m completed in the Funchal Norte Target of the Cerrado Verde Potash Project. An Inferred Resource was then estimated for a total of 105 million tonnes at 10.3% K2O using a 7.5% K2O cut-off (see release dated March 8, 2010).

Qualified Person

The technical content of this news release has been prepared by Mr. Beau Nicholls, MAIG, Consulting Geologist, who is a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101.

About Verde Potash

Verde Potash, founded and led by Brazilians, is a fertilizer exploration and development company. It is developing Cerrado Verde project in Brazil, a source of potash-rich rock from which Verde plans to produce a slow-release, non-chloride, multi-nutrient, fertilizer product named ThermoPotash. Founded as Amazon Mining in 2005, the Company changed its name to Verde Potash in April 2011 to better reflect its main business. The Company is also exploring for phosphate and limestone.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Verde Potash, Cristiano Veloso, President and CEO.

To view Figure 1: Verde Potash, RC & DC Drilling Program, Intermediate Block and Figure 2: Verde Potash, RC & DC Drilling Program, Southern Block, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/695149_figures.pdf