Ecuador Gold & Copper Corp. Announces El Hito Drill Results of 229 Meters @ 0.40% Copper and 0.71 g/t Silver Including 41.55 Meters @ 0.73% Copper and 3.20 g/t Silver

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VANCOUVER, Feb. 19, 2013 /CNW/ - Ecuador Gold & Copper Corp. (TSX-V: EGX), (the "Company" or "EGX") is pleased to announce assay results from drill hole DEH-05 at its El Hito copper porphyry deposit. The El Hito deposit is located within the Company's 8,300 hectare Condor Gold and Copper Project in the Zamora Gold and Copper Belt, Southeast Ecuador.  Numerous intercepts are highlighted by two continuous intersections of a 31.85 meter interval with 0.42% Cu and 1.2 g/t Ag and a further 229 meter interval with 0.40% Cu and 0.71 g/t Ag including 41.55meters of 0.73% Cu and 3.20 g/t Ag.

This is the first EGX drill hole at El Hito, part of the previously announced 10,000 meter Phase I drill program on the Company's extensive Condor Gold and Copper Project. DEH-05 encountered a number of long mineralized intervals that confirm the potential for a significant porphyry copper deposit at El Hito.  For further details see the Company's web site at www.ecuadorgoldandcopper.com or the June 14, 2012 Technical Report at www.sedar.com.

DEH-05 was collared approximately 200 meters south of four shallow discovery holes drilled in the late 1990s by previous operators and was drilled to the east to a depth of 711meters.  Table 1 summarizes the assay results.

Table 1:  Summary of Results from El Hito Drill Hole DEH-05 (length weighted average assays, uncapped)

• g/t = grams per metric tonne.
• The true width of down hole interval lengths are estimated to be approximately 50% to 60%.

Commentary

Drill hole DEH-05 intersected relatively continuous copper mineralization over 703 meters from 8.0m to 711.0m grading an average of 0.31% Cu and 1.18 g/t Ag over the entire length.  Porphyry copper mineralization is associated with a Late Jurassic dioritic intrusive complex hosted by Jurassic age plutonic rocks of the Zamora batholith. Two major structural orientations are exhibited by steeply dipping intrusive contacts, quartz veins, sulfide-mineral veinlets, and faults striking north and northwest. The majority of the diorite complex is moderately to strongly quartz-sericite-pyrite (phyllic) altered, overprinting potassic alteration at depth.  The 40km long Zamora Gold and Copper Belt in Southeastern Ecuador is host to Ecuacorriente's Mirador, Panantza and San Carlos copper porphyry deposits and Kinross's Fruta del Norte epithermal gold deposit of the same age.  The Company cautions that reference to the nearby deposits is for information purposes only and there is no assurance that its Condor gold and copper concessions will develop into economically viable producing deposits.

10,000 Meter Phase I Drill Program

El Hito is one of four targets including two epithermal gold deposits: the Los Cuyes deposit (where previously released results on 29 January 2013 showed 149.0 meters @0.84 g/t Au and 9.0 g/t Ag including 14.1meters @ 5.00g/t Au and 39.0 g/t Au); the Soledad deposit in the northern part of the gold and copper concessions of the Condor Gold Project; and the Santa Barbara deposit, a gold-copper porphyry south of the epithermal district and 5 km west of the El Hito deposit.

EGX is currently drilling four more holes at the El Hito copper porphyry target and seven follow up holes at the Santa Barbara gold-copper porphyry target to the west where previously released results showed 420 meters of 0.571 g/t Au including 101meters grading 1.017 g/t (see Company News Release, October 17, 2012).

Drilling completed to the end of January, 2013 totaled approximately 7,000 meters and new holes are in progress at Santa Barbara and El Hito with two drill rigs currently turning.

Existing Resources

The Condor Gold Project contains a Measured & Indicated Mineral Resource of 1.52 million ounces gold (within 50.4 Mt grading 0.94 g/t gold). Additional Inferred Mineral Resources contain 1.28 million ounces gold (within 28.4 Mt grading 1.4 g/t gold). The measured resource consists of 54,000 ounces of gold (within 147.0 Mt grading 1.0 g/t gold) and the indicated resources consist of 1.47 million ounces gold (within 50.3 Mt grading 0.94 g/t). For more information, please see the Company's resource table at www.ecuadorgoldandcopper.com or its Technical Report dated June 14, 2012 which is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Quality Assurance

The Company has implemented a quality assurance and quality control program to ensure that the transport, sampling and analysis of all samples is conducted in accordance with the best possible practices. Drill core is transported from the drill by employees to the Company's secure core logging facility at its camp where, after geotechnical and geological logging, it is marked for sampling.  The entire hole is sampled and core samples are generally 2m in length, varying at geological contacts to between 1.5m and 2.5m and are split in half by EGX employees.  One half is retained in a secure storage facility and the other half is transported by EGX employees or a bonded courier to ACME Labs' sample preparation facility in Cuenca, Ecuador where the core sample is crushed so that 80% passes a 10 mesh screen and a 250g split is pulverized so that 85% passes a 200 mesh screen.  From Cuenca ACME Labs ships the samples to their laboratory in Santiago, Chile for analysis. The lab is ISO/IEC 17025:2005 (CAN-P-4E) certified. Where appropriate, samples are analyzed for gold by 30-gm fire assay with an AA finish and by gravimetric methods for assays over 10 ppm. Samples are analyzed for silver and copper by ICP-ES after a four acid digestion.  For silver assays over 200 ppm, samples are analyzed using ACME Labs 7AR method consisting of hot aqua regia digestion and ICP-ES analysis. Copper assays over 10,000 ppm are re-analyzed using four acid digestion with ICP-ES finish (ACME Labs 7TD method).  ACME Labs are independent from the Company.

Under the Company's QA-QC procedures, samples are submitted for re-analysis based on their proximity to a certified reference standard that returns a value greater than three standard deviations higher or lower than the mean value for that standard. In addition, any two consecutive reference standards falling outside the two standard deviation threshold will be considered to have failed. Since every twentieth sample is a reference standard, ten samples above and below a failed standard will be re-analyzed. The same protocol will be applied to duplicate samples considered to have unacceptably divergent gold values. Periodically, random samples will be submitted to another laboratory as an external check on the results provided by the primary lab.

Qualified Person

Mit Tilkov, P.Geo., Vice-President Exploration of Ecuador Gold and Copper Corp. is the qualified person, as defined by National Instrument 43-101, supervised the project field work, and is responsible for the preparation of the technical information in this release.

Cautionary Note

The Company has not completed a preliminary economic assessment or feasibility study of the Condor Gold Project under National Instrument 43-101, and there is no assurance that the exploration and subsequent development operations of the Condor Gold Project will be economically or technically viable.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Ecuador Gold and Copper Corp.