July 12, 2010, Vancouver, BC – Great Basin Gold Ltd. (“Great Basin” or the “Company”) (TSX: GBG; NYSE Amex: GBG; JSE: GBG) announces progress in the delivery of the capital projects at its Burnstone Mine development project in South Africa.

Eskom, the state energy provider, has informed the Company that final arrangements have been made to tie the Burnstone project in to the national electricity grid on August 8, 2010, which is a delay of approximately 2 weeks with a resultant delay in plant start up. The establishment of bulk electrical power infrastructure to the Burnstone Mine by Eskom is well advanced. The main distribution substation at Burnstone site is complete and the receiving infrastructure being part of the Eskom line project is ready to receive electrical power. Power supply to Burnstone is enabled through the execution of a two phased project, with phase 1 the delivery of a single line, designed to carry the full demand (51 megavolt-amperes (MVA), scaled from 21 MVA initially and building up to the full requirement as production builds up. Phase 2 is the construction of a second, identical, line with the aim of mitigating the risk of power outages to the mine and region. This second line will not increase the capacity of the supply, but is aimed at security of supply, commensurate with Eskom’s risk and safety policies.

To date, the metallurgical plant construction project has made rapid progress against an aggressive 15 month delivery time line. The project thus far has seen intensive civil construction activities on-site and a multitude of simultaneous assembly and refurbishment activities off site. The heavy civil construction has largely been completed, construction of various buildings is far advanced, and the off-site assembled components are being delivered and installed.

Over the past month, the ball and semi autogenous grinding mill shells and heads have been mounted in position, the mill motors have been installed and general alignment and installation procedures completed. Currently the lubrication systems and mill liners are being installed.

The silo is in its final stage of completion with the roof steel installed and the final associated civil construction being finalised. Installation of steel feeder systems at the silo bottom is in progress.

The main feed conveyor gantries have also been assembled and are being installed.

The thickener installation is complete and a final layer of paint is being applied. The installation of the flocculent plant and the construction of process tanks for start-up have also been completed.

All sub-station and central buildings are complete and electrical and instrumentation installation is in progress. Piping and cable racking construction is far advanced and installation of pipes, cables, pumps and associated components are in progress. The cable trenching and installation from the main Eskom sub-station is complete and ready to receive power.

The tailings facility project is progressing well, with Phase 1 having been completed and ready to receive tailings from the plant. A water storage and supply dam has been activated with surplus underground water being pumped into and stored in it. Upon commissioning, the raw water storage and thickener tanks in the metallurgical plant will be filled as well.

Another highlight in the past two months was completion of the sinking phase of the Burnstone vertical shaft to its final depth of 1,598 ft (487 m) on May 4, 2010. In addition, the initial development on 40 Level and 41 Level Stations were completed. A conveyor system required for ore handling has been installed on 41 Level. Equipping of the shaft continues and is expected to be completed in August 2010. The winder house construction has been completed; both winders were dry commissioned at the end of last week, and ahead of schedule.

The holing of the 5.1-m diameter, 305-m deep vertical ventilation shaft took place on May 12, 2010 and will act as an up-cast shaft to provide sufficient ventilation for mining of blocks B and C. The lining of the first 90 m of the shaft with shotcrete as well as connection of three 720 kiloWatt surface fans is in progress. The shaft will provide adequate ventilation for the underground workings well into the future.

Good progress also continues to be made in the development of underground infrastructure at Burnstone. A significant milestone was achieved on June 24 with the holing of the decline with the vertical shaft. A total of 8,822 ft (2,692 m) of on-reef development was completed by the end of June 2010. The long hole stoping trials are progressing well and the rate of mining is expected to increase as more mining areas become available. The focus is on establishing more stopes in Block B while activities in the higher grade Block C continue to be focused on reef development. Block C Middle level was accessed during the previous quarter with Block C Upper scheduled to be accessed in July 2010. The additional access points in Block C will allow for an increase in opening up of new mining areas. A total of approximately 126,000 tons have been accumulated on the ore stockpiles which will be used for mill commissioning.

Ferdi Dippenaar, President and CEO, commented: “Although delayed, finalization of the power supply from Eskom is a significant step towards the commissioning of the Burnstone metallurgical plant. Internal delays at Eskom impacted on its previous commitments to deliver power to site by the end of June 2010. Fortunately, the delay in commissioning the mill is only limited to two weeks, and is not expected to significantly impact on the planned ore throughput.”