Corriente pleased with choice of SNC-Lavalin

Corriente Resources’ wholly owned subsidiary, EcuaCorriente has signed a Letter of Award with SNC-Lavalin Chile, a member of the SNC-Lavalin Group of Companies of Canada, for full engineering and procurement services for the start-up and expansion of the Mirador copper-gold mine in southeast Ecuador. Corriente’s President Tom Milner commented, "A challenge facing the mining industry globally is the shortage of engineering services available to do detailed engineering and construction of new operations to meet the growing demand for metals. We are pleased to secure the services of SNC-Lavalin Chile’s experienced engineering group, who have extensive mine design and construction experience in South America. This is an important step towards our start-up of operations at Mirador. Corriente’s copper resources and team of experienced senior mine operating personnel, forms the foundation for Corriente to build a strong mid-tier copper producer with a significant growth potential."

Last November, Corriente announced the results of optimization study work done by Mine Development Associates of Reno, which established a mine life of 38 years for the 25,000 t/d starter project. Using the optimization study results, Management established the viability of expanding the starter project to 50,000 t/d with construction of the expansion underway in year 5 of operations, and reported in November that the overall Mirador mine plan was projected to generate a 24% pre-tax IRR and a NPV of $349 million at an 8% discount rate using a long-term copper price of $1.10/lb. Engineering and pre-construction work remains on schedule at Mirador, with approval of the company’s Environmental Impact Assessment expected in the second quarter of 2006. Mirador is one of the few new, sizeable copper projects available for near-term production.

Besides Mirador, Corriente has a unique pipeline of copper projects which will support increased copper production in the Corriente Copper Belt District. Corriente controls a 100% interest in over 50,000 ha located within the Belt. The Belt currently contains three copper and copper-gold porphyry deposits, Mirador, Panantza and San Carlos. Corriente has recently discovered a fourth deposit in the district, Mirador Norte (3 km from Mirador), where resource delineation drilling is currently ongoing. Additional exploration activities will be ongoing, as six additional copper and copper-gold exploration targets have been identified in the Corriente Copper Belt to date.