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ECU Silver to Increase Gold and Reports on Gold Dore for August

Thursday September 24, 2009, 8:53 am EDT

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Sept. 24, 2009) - ECU Silver Mining Inc. (TSX:ECU - OTC:ECUXF) is pleased to report, on test work performed at the Company's oxide mill to increase gold throughput, and on dore bar fabrication for the month of August.

The key conclusions from the test work are:

- The Company will be able to enhance gold grades at the oxide mill through the milling of roasted material sourced from the stockpile of pyrite/gold concentrates.

- The Company will also be able to further enhance gold throughput from the addition of a new circuit, to be installed next month, to start feeding an additional 400 tonnes per day to the oxide mill.

In the month of August, the oxide mill generated 37 dore bars with a total weight of 733 kilograms (kg). The assays of the dore bars indicated that they contained a total of approximately 495 ounces of gold and 12,838 ounces of silver. To date, 219 bars have been generated with a total weight of 4,513 kg containing 2,740 ounces of gold and 88,961 ounces of silver.

Productivity of the oxide operations remains strong with 14,323 tonnes milled during 29 operating days in August giving an average of 494 tonnes per day.

In August, the Company started the last round of full scale operational testing at the oxide mill. These tests were designed to enhance gold and silver at the oxide mill.

During August 1st to the 25th, several blends of mineralized material were processed to evaluate the impact of changing blends on the recoveries. The most important conclusions were that recoveries were best, reaching up to 80%, when a maximum of 15% of the mill feed was from mixed mineralized material (i.e. oxides containing a fair percentage of sulfides).

During August 26th to September 8th, 525 tonnes of raw pyrite/gold concentrates (i.e. un-roasted pyrite/gold), was added to the daily oxide mill feed. This amount represented about 8% of the total feed. This was done to test whether the recoveries of un-roasted material were comparative to that of roasted material (oxidizing the pyrite/gold concentrates prior to leaching through the oxide mill). The conclusion was that roasting continues to show superior recoveries, as discussed further below.

During September 10th to 13th, the Company milled a blend of mineralized material that consisted of 33% pyrite/gold tailings plus 67% of low grade material from a stockpile in the Hiletas mine. The tailings are currently the source for the pyrite/gold concentrates which are generated from the sulphide mill. The recoveries for the gold contained in the blend were approximately 55%, which is superior to the 50% that is achieved when milling the tailings through the sulphide mill. Consequently, based on this positive news, a new circuit was designed and will be added to the oxide mill to permit the daily processing of 400 tonnes of pyrite/gold tailings, in addition to the 500 tonnes of mineralized material the oxide mill is currently processing.

During September 14th to 17th, 148 tonnes of roasted pyrite/gold concentrates were added to the oxide mill, representing 7% of the overall mill feed. The other portion of the mill feed comes primarily from the underground mines. Despite the relatively small volume, the impact of the roasted pyrite/gold concentrates was very positive with a near doubling of the grades of solutions and an increase in daily output of gold by 225%, so far. Estimated gold recoveries for the roasted material are still extremely high, and currently estimated at above 90%.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ECU-Silver-to-Increase-Gold-ccn-254960041.html?x=0&.v=1