Excelsior Gold (ASX: EXG) will commence drilling at its Kalgoorlie North Project in mid-July aiming to expand current resources in the Zoroastrian area, and enable preliminary underground mine studies to start. The reverse circulation and diamond drilling program will test for extensions of the high-grade resource beneath the southern end of the Zoroastrian Pit where an Inferred Resource of 18,500 ounces (ozs) of gold was established in April. The company believes that the Excelsior/Zoroastrian area in Western Australia has potential to host very substantial gold resources amenable to exploitation by underground and open pit mining methods. The area is located midway between the plus million ounce deposits at Paddington, 17 kilometres to the south, and Aphrodite Gold's (ASX: AQQ) Aphrodite project, 17 kilometres to the north. Importantly, the project is located near Kalgoorlie, with regional infrastructure and supporting exploration and mining services. Since acquiring Kalgoorlie North in August 2009, Excelsior Gold has added 300,000ozs to the project resources through assessment of historic drilling data and targeted drilling campaigns which have successfully grown the resource at an average of 20ozs per drill metre and at a cost of less than $10/resource ounce. A previous lack of drilling to the south, west and at depth, has limited the extent of the current resource to only four lode positions over a strike length of 160 metres, and a vertical depth of 45 metres below the pit floor, which is 60 metres deep. The company said the new drilling will target seven interpreted lode positions over 350 metres of strike and 150 metres vertical extent below and to the south of the Zoroastrian open pit. Drilling is also designed to following up on previous significant intercepts including 4 metres at 11.3 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 1 metre at 89.5g/t gold., and 11 metres at 13.6 g/t gold. In addition, Excelsior is planning to drill the northern end of the Zoroastrian Pit to examine the spectacular gold intersections in historic drill holes of 9.8m at 1746g/t gold and 6 metres at 289g/t gold. The company is also awaiting Department of Mines and Petroleum’s approval to commence a reverse circulation and diamond drilling drill program at the Excelsior deposit, 300 metres to the east of Zoroastrian, to extend the current resource beneath and along strike from the existing open pit. The Indicated and Inferred Resources at Excelsior total 251,000ozs (not including past production of 97,000ozs) down to an approximate vertical depth of 220 metres. The deep drilling is designed to test 200m down plunge/dip of the current resource over 750 metres of strike and has the potential to significant increase the resource.

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