Minera Andes Announces New Discovery

SPOKANE, WA - Minera Andes Inc. reported details of the 2009 exploration program underway at its producing high-grade gold/silver San Jose Mine in southern Argentina. The San Jose project is owned by Minera Santa Cruz S.A. ("MSC") and MSC is owned 49% by Minera Andes and 51% by Hochschild Mining plc the operator. Exploration highlights include the discovery of a new mineralized structure about 845 meters southwest of the producing Huevos Verdes vein. The structure, which does not outcrop on the surface, was discovered in the first hole of a program of several 1,000 meter long diamond drill holes to be drilled horizontally from existing underground workings. Core hole (SMJ-105) intersected 8.9 g/t (0.26 ounces per tonne - opt) gold and 517 g/t (15.1 opt) silver over 1.00 meters.
The 2009 exploration program at San Jose consists of a compilation and interpretation of project data over the entire San Jose district, comprising approximately 115 km(2) (28,400 acres), to identify new targets and follow up on existing targets through exploration drilling. The planned drilling program totals approximately 22,000 meters made up of 17,000 meters of core drilling from the surface and 5,000 meters of underground drilling. The surface drilling will focus on the Kospi, Ayelen, Odin, and the newly discovered structure. Underground drilling will concentrate on the Kospi, Frea, Huevos Verdes Central veins as well as other veins by drilling from the underground access ramps. In addition to discovering new mineralized veins, the goal of this year's exploration program will be to add to the existing resources at San Jose.
The new mineralized quartz vein structure was discovered in the first drill hole of the underground exploration program in the San Jose mine. The first phase of the underground drilling program consists of five 1,000-meter long, horizontal holes to test various geophysical targets outside the current mining areas in order to evaluate possible sub-parallel structures. Drill hole JM-105, directed towards a high-resistivity anomaly to the southwest of the Huevos Verdes vein, intersected the structure at 845m yielding 8.9 g/t Au and 517 g/t Ag over 1.0 meter width. A follow-up surface drilling program to test the continuity of this recent discovery is in preparation. The current five long-hole underground program continues with a second horizontal hole currently being drilled in a northeast direction from the Huevos Verdes vein.