American Bonanza Reports On Progress At Copperstone Gold Mine

VANCOUVER, BC - American Bonanza Gold Corp. reported progress at the 100% owned Copperstone gold mine in Arizona during March 2013. March saw a continuation of the ramp-up to design with an emphasis on mine planning, re-building the stock pile, and mill recovery.

The focus in March continued to be on underground development, and ramp-up to sustainable production and grade from the operation. Further changes to the mine and development plan commenced with the goal of ensuring sustainability in the months to come.

These changes included a new approach to the development mining of ore zones. New development headings are now being mined parallel to and near the ore zone, instead of the past practice of approaching ore zones by development mining along strike into each ore zone. Upon completion of the development drift, the ore zones will then be accessed by short crosscuts into and across the middle of the ore zones. This allows for significantly shorter access into the ore zones, more ore mining areas because ore production will reach both directions along strike from the access crosscut, shorter backfilling requirements, and less mining of material with low grades at the strike extremities of the ore zones.

Most future mining will be developed in this manner, and plans are prepared for long hole stoping in several areas, which should reduce costs and increase productivity further.

Total ore mined for March improved to 347 tons per day, producing 2,134 more tons than February's figures as a result of sustained productivity from the backfill program. 746 feet of ore was mined, which is 46% more than February, with the mine performing at an average of 5.2 rounds of mining progress per day. Ore grades reduced from 0.0101 to 0.0734 in March. This is a consequence of mining areas in the periphery of the deposit, to set-up the ore zones for future mining, and the need to make-up mill feed by using incremental low grade material to keep the mill running. Active headings were down from February's number of 7 to the target 6 in March. This was due to the focus on backfilling in order to set-up a more sustainable ore zone cycle of ore production and backfilling. The geology, engineering teams and mine management have been focused for the past several months on mine planning. The goal is to ensure a consistent improvement in the head grades fed to the mill through extensive face mapping, sampling, scout drilling and mine planning.

 Short term planning and forecasting has been put in place to prioritize development and mining cycle activities to sustain and ultimately increase production and productivity. Work continued on improving the block model to better identify near and long term ore targets.

During March, development was mined in areas that are required for sustainability. A new plan was implemented by the end of March that will focus on developing a loop from the 810 area to the 730 mine area. The 810 to 730 ramp provides the necessary ventilation loop to target and access potential reserves around and adjacent to this ramp. At least two new ore zones will be accessed from this ramp. This ramp will be run near and along strike with the ore body, in the hanging wall, and will allow for multiple ore access points at different levels. This should significantly improve backfill requirements.

Mill recovery during March averaged 80% as a direct result of the reduced grades. The recovery will continue to improve as the grade comes up and is sent to the mill on a more consistent basis.

670 ounces of gold were shipped during March as a result of the change in grade. However in the first ten days of April, over 450 oz were shipped. The increase is a result of the change of focus on planning.

Brian Kirwin, President & CEO, said, We are starting to see the results from our change in the mining plans and the focus on sustainable production. The addition of our new Mine Manager, Senior Geologist and Controller has reinforced our senior team, and their expertise and positive contributions to the project have been welcomed by all at Copperstone. We will continue to see some irregularities in grade and product through April as we implement our sustainability goals but are committed to catching up on development as quickly as possible and declare commercial production."