Drilling Continues At Relief Canyon Mine

LAKEWOOD, CO - Pershing Gold Corporation has taken another significant step towards putting its Relief Canyon Mine in Pershing County, Nevada back into production. The Company has selected Knight Piesold and Company to perform the geotechnical engineering work required to update several key permits for the mine. Pershing Gold's 2013 drilling campaign is still in progress as drilling continues in an area mainly north of the North Pit. The current drilling effort has the objective of expanding and upgrading the existing NI 43-101 compliant in-pit resource of 463,000 ounces of Measured and Indicated gold and 101,000 ounces of Inferred gold.  The first round of drilling results announced previously show that the Lower Zone portion of the Relief Canyon deposit has considerable areal extent and is open in all directions. This drilling also discovered several high-grade intercepts. McClelland Labs, Inc. of Sparks, Nevada is conducting the metallurgical test work needed for mine planning, permitting activities, and to optimize gold recoveries. "We are well situated to become Nevada's next, new gold producer because we own a mine with a gold resource and a fully constructed and permitted gold recovery facility," said Stephen Alfers. "Together, these facilities create the perfect opportunity for fast track resumption of gold production with only modest capital expenditures to re-start the entire operation. The leach pads can accommodate 21 million tons of ore with lots of room for expansion; the gold recovery plant has the capacity to process up to 8 million tons per year." The Relief Canyon Mine property includes three open-pit mines and a state of-the-art, fully permitted and constructed heap leach processing facility. These assets present Pershing Gold with the opportunity to achieve a fast-track path to production at the Relief Canyon Mine. Pershing Gold's landholdings cover over 25,000 acres that include the Relief Canyon Mine asset and lands surrounding the mine in all directions.