The Soledad Mountain Project

The company is proposing to develop a gold-silver, open pit, heap leach operation on its Soledad Mountain property, located just outside the town of Mojave in Kern County in southern California. Every element of the Soledad Mountain Project (the “Project”) has been rethought and reengineered since 2003 in an effort to find sound technical and cost-effective solutions that would see the Project proceed with a robust internal rate of return or IRR. This phase of the technical work was completed toward the end of 2007.

Independent Technical Report & Mineral Resource Estimates

The company engaged SRK Consulting (U.S.), Inc. in 2005 to prepare a National Instrument 43-101 compliant Technical Report to validate and confirm mineral resource estimates. The Technical Report was released on March 6, 2006. The mineral resources confirmed in the Technical Report are estimated to contain 2,162,000 oz of gold and 37,628,000 oz of silver in the Measured and Indicated categories and a further 511,000 oz gold and 11,154,000 oz silver in the Inferred category, both calculated with a gold-equivalent cut-off grade of 0.274g/t (0.008oz/ton).

Independent Feasibility Study & Mineral Reserve Estimates

The company engaged Norwest Corporation of Vancouver in January 2007 to prepare a National Instrument 43-101 compliant Technical Report to assess mineral reserves for the Project as part of an independent feasibility study. The results of the study were made public in a press release dated December 14, 2007. The Technical Report was filed with the applicable Canadian securities commissions in January 2008.