Ecuador Gold announces Santa Barbara drill results of 496 meters @ 0.90 g/t gold and 0.12% copper including 144 meters @ 1.03 g/t gold and 0.15% copper and 82 meters @ 1.16 g/t gold and 0.15% copper

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TORONTO, April 24, 2013 /CNW/ - Ecuador Gold & Copper Corp. (TSX-V: EGX), (the "Company" or "EGX") is pleased to announce assay results from drill hole DSB-23 at its Santa Barbara gold-copper porphyry deposit. The Santa Barbara deposit is located within the Company's 8,300 hectare Condor Gold and Copper Project in the Zamora Gold and Copper Belt, Southeast Ecuador.  Drill hole DSB-23 returned significant results within a continuously mineralized 496 meter interval starting at 204 meters that averaged 0.90 g/t Au and 0.12% Cu ending in mineralization at 700 meters. The mineralized zone includes 144 meters averaging 1.03 g/t Au and 0.15% Cu and an additional 82 meters averaging 1.16g/t Au and 0.15% Cu.  A 40 meter section between 310-350 meters averaged 1.42 g/t Au and 0.18% Cu.  Assay results are shown in the table below.

DSB-23 is the fifth hole completed at Santa Barbara since August 2012 as part of the previously announced Phase I drill program on the Company's Condor Gold and Copper Project. This hole was drilled to 700m at -65 degrees, parallel to and collared approximately 70 meters northeast of DSB-22 where previously released results showed 484 meters of 0.80 g/t Au including 266 meters grading 0.99 g/t Au (see Company News Release, April 10, 2013).  The Santa Barbara South Zone currently hosts an NI 43-101 previously reported inferred resource of 21.0 Mt of 1.00 g/t Au (675,000 oz) while the Santa Barbara North zone (500m to the northeast), contains a further inferred resource of 5.0 Mt of 0.90 g/t Au (145,000 oz).  For further details see the Company's web site at www.ecuadorgoldandcopper.com or the June 14, 2012 Technical Report at www.sedar.com.

Table 1 summarizes the assay results for DSB-23 and previous results from EGX Phase I drilling at Santa Barbara.

Table 1:  Summary of Phase I drill results from Santa Barbara (length weighted average assays, uncapped)

• g/t = grams per metric tonne.
• Gold equivalent grade (AuEq) is calculated assuming 90% recovery of copper with a $3.00/lb. long term price of copper and $1400 long term price for gold.
• The true width of down hole interval lengths are estimated to be approximately 25% to 50%.

The attached map - Figure 1 shows the location of drill holes that have been completed by EGX. Two drills are currently drilling holes DSB-26 and DSB-27.

Commentary

Drill hole DSB-23 intersected almost continuous gold and copper mineralization over 496 meters from 204m to 700m grading an average of 0.90 g/t gold and 0.12% Cu over the interval.  The Santa Barbara South Zone remains open to the north, east and south.  Porphyry gold-copper mineralization is hosted by altered basaltic andesite intruded by Jurassic intrusive stocks and dikes. Major structural orientations are exhibited by steeply dipping intrusive contacts, porphyry B-type quartz veins and faults striking northwest and northeast.  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.

Phase I Drill Program

The Santa Barbara gold - copper porphyry deposit is one of four targets including two epithermal gold targets (Los Cuyes, and Soledad) in the northern part of the Condor Gold and Copper concessions and the promising El Hito copper-molybdenum porphyry target located 5km east of Santa Barbara. These four target areas have been prioritized for resource expansion drilling by the Company (See Company News Releases, January 30, 2013 and March 5, 2013 for recent drill results at Los Cuyes and El Hito).

Drilling at Santa Barbara continues with two drill rigs.  The Company is currently planning additional holes to extend mineralization to the south and east of the current resource.  Drill holes DSB-24 and 25 have been completed and assay results are awaited.

Drilling completed on the Company's Condor Gold and Copper Project to 23 April, 2013 totaled approximately 11,000 meters.  The Phase 1 Drill Program totaling approximately 13,000 meters is scheduled to be completed by the end of May 2013.

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 are 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.

Image with caption: "Figure 1 - Location of drill holes that have been completed by EGX. Two drills are currently drilling holes DSB-26 and DSB-27. (CNW Group/Ecuador Gold and Copper Corp.)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20130424_C8405_PHOTO_EN_25970.jpg

SOURCE: Ecuador Gold and Copper Corp.