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Columbus Gold Drills 10.6 Meters of 5.23 g/t Gold at Montagne d’Or; French Guiana

Columbus Gold Corporation (“Columbus Gold”) is pleased to announce drill results from an additional 9 holes from its Phase II resource development diamond drilling campaign currently underway at its 100%-owned Montagne d’Or gold deposit, Paul Isnard Project, in French Guiana. To date 106 holes (106 to 203 and 206 to 213) have been completed, for a total of 20,750 meters.

“This latest round of results has demonstrated good continuity of the principal UFZ zone within the west-central and east-central sections of the deposit. All holes returned thick gold mineralized intervals within 200 metres from surface” commented Robert F. Giustra, Chairman and CEO of Columbus Gold. “With three drill rigs operating we are well on our way to finalizing the current drill program in early November and targeting completion of a new resource estimate in January.”

The Montagne d’Or gold deposit is presently defined over 2,500-meter by 400-meters and to an average depth of 250 meters from surface. The mineralised zones remain open in part along strike, between widely spaced holes, and at depth. Utilizing a cut-off grade of 0.4 g/t gold, the Montagne d’Or deposit hosts an Inferred resource of 140.1 million tonnes grading 1.0 g/t gold for a total of 4.31 million contained ounces of gold. Please refer to Columbus Gold’s news release of June 30, 2014 for more information. The drilling is being funded by Nord Gold N.V. (LSE: NORD LI) as part of a minimum US$30 million exploration and development program pursuant to which they can earn a 50.01% interest in Montagne d’Or and the Paul Isnard mineral claims, by completing a bankable feasibility study no later than March 2017.

The drill program is currently advancing with three track-mounted diamond drill rigs, each operating on two 12-hour shifts per day, with the aim of completing the Phase II program in the first week of November.

Gold assay results were previously released for 58 short holes (106 to 163), which were completed at the northern foothill of Montagne d’Or massif and designed to test the near surface projection of the secondary LFZ and FWZ, and 6 holes (164 to 169) completed along the west portion of the main UFZ.

The objectives of the Phase II resource development diamond drill program are to:

  • Complete a 50-meter spacing array to a vertical depth of 200 meters from surface, focused on mineralization potentially amenable to open pit mining;
  • Internally increase current mineralized tonnage;
  • Increase confidence in the gold grade-width distribution;
  • Convert portions of the Inferred resources to the Indicated and Measured categories in accordance with NI 43-101 standards; and
  • Acquire a better distribution of copper assays for added value to the deposit.

Qualified Person, Technical Info and QA/QC

Diamond drill holes were bored with HQ-size core in the upper oxidized saprolitic zone and NQ-size core in fresh rock. The core was placed in heavy PVC plastic core boxes with covers and delivered by the drilling contractor, Pro Forage Guyane (formerly Performax Drilling Inc.), to the Citron camp logging facilities, located 5 km from Montagne d’Or. Columbus Gold personnel are present at the camp at all times during the drilling program.

The core was photographed for reference, logged (geotechnical and geological) and identified sulphide mineralised sections were sawed in half. Sample lengths vary between 0.5 to 1.5 meters. Individual half core samples were placed and sealed in heavy duty cellophane plastic bags and placed by batch of 9 samples in sealed polypropylene bags for air transport to the Cayenne and trucking to Filab Amsud laboratory in Paramaribo, Suriname, an ISO 9001 and ISO / IEC 17025 accredited laboratory. The remaining half core is stored in core racks on site at Citron camp for reference. Samples were assayed for gold by fire-assay method using an atomic absorption finish on a 50-gram pulp split and ICP-MS multi-element analysis, including copper.

A quality assurance and quality control program (QA/QC) was implemented by Columbus Gold and Filab Amsud to insure the accuracy and reproducibility of the analytical method and results. The QA/QC program includes the insertion of gold and copper standards, blanks and field duplicates in each laboratory assay batch and systematic re-assaying of samples returning values above 5 g/t Au by the fire-assay method using a gravimetric finish on a 50-gram pulp split. As well, 10% of random sample pulps are sent to SGS del Peru S.A.C. laboratory for gold check assaying.

The drilling program is being conducted under the supervision of Rock Lefrançois, P.Geo. (OGQ), Chief Operating Officer for Columbus Gold and Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Lefrançois, the Qualified Person, has reviewed this news release and is responsible for the technical information reported herein, including verification of the data disclosed.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD,

Robert F. Giustra
Chairman & CEO