Ecuador Gold announces Santa Barbara Drill Results Of 206 Meters @ 1.01 G/t Gold and 0.12% Copper Including 88 Meters @ 1.35 ...

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VANCOUVER, Feb. 26, 2013 /CNW/ - Ecuador Gold & Copper Corp. (TSX-V: EGX), (the "Company" or "EGX") is pleased to announce assay results from drill holes DSB-20 and DSB-21 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-21 returned significant results including 206m averaging 1.01 g/t Au, 0.12% Cu and 1.14 g/t Ag within a continuously mineralized 350m interval that averaged 0.74 g/t Au starting at 68m.  Best gold grades were encountered from 140m to 228m (88m) where grades ranged consistently over 1.00 g/t Au up to 2.8 g/t Au, averaging 1.35 g./t Au, 0.143% Cu and 0.89 g/t Ag.  Full assay results are described in the table below.

Three drill holes were completed at Santa Barbara as part of the previously announced 10,000 meter Phase I drill program on the Company's extensive Condor Gold and Copper Project. DSB-19 showed 420 meters of 0.571 g/t Au including 101 meters grading 1.017 g/t (see Company News Release, October 17, 2012).  In December, DSB-20 was collared 100m northwest of the mineralized zone on a roadside geochemical anomaly and failed to return significant results.  DSB-21 intersected the main gold zone approximately 50m south of previous intercepts.  The Santa Barbara South Zone currently hosts an NI 43-101 compliant 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.

The locations of EGX holes DSB-19, 20 and 21 are shown with earlier drill holes on the attached plan map.  Table 1 summarizes the assay results.

Table 1:  Summary of 2012 Results from Santa Barbara Drill Holes DSB-19, 20 & 21 (length weighted average assays, uncapped)

Drill Hole	From (m)	To (m)	Interval (m)	Au (g/t)	Cu (%)	Ag (g/t)	AuEq (g/t)
DSB-19	180.00	600.00	420.00	0.57	0.08	1.16	0.69
including	191.54	293.20	101.66	1.02	0.11	0.84	1.17
and	344.10	477.00	132.90	0.62	0.10	1.12	0.76
DSB-20	0.00	400.00	400.00	0.10	0.06	0.68	0.19
DSB-21	68.00	418.00	350.00	0.74	0.11	1.09	0.90
including	100.00	354.00	254.00	0.90	0.12	1.14	1.07
Including	100.00	306.00	206.00	1.01	0.12	0.99	1.18
including	140.00	228.00	88.00	1.35	0.14	0.89	1.54

• 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  60% recovery of silver, $25/oz long term price of silver and $1400 long term price for gold.
• The true width of down hole interval lengths are estimated to be approximately 50% to 60%.

Commentary

Drill hole DSB-21 intersected almost continuous gold mineralization over 350 meters from 68.0m to 418m grading an average of 0.74 g/t gold, 0.11% Cu and 1.09 g/t Ag over the interval.  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.

10,000 Meter Phase I Drill Program

The Santa Barbara gold 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 together with the promising El Hito copper-molybdenum porphyry target located 5km east of Santa Barbara that have been prioritized for resource expansion drilling by the Company (see Company News Releases, January 30, 2013 and February 19, 2013 for recent drill results at Los Cuyes and El Hito).

EGX is currently planning seven follow up holes at Santa Barbara to extend mineralization to the south and east of the current resource. Two drill rigs are currently moving to Santa Barbara to commence drilling during the last week of February.

Drilling completed on the Company's Condor Gold and Copper Project to the end of January, 2013 totaled approximately 7,000 meters.

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 147,000 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.

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