Vancouver, B.C. - Bear Creek Mining Corporation (TSX Venture: BCM/ BVL: BCM) ("Bear Creek" or the "Company") is very pleased to announce an update to the silver recovery for its 100% owned Santa Ana deposit located in southern Peru. Santa Ana will be the first of two silver deposits to achieve production that, combined, will see the Company producing 15-20 million ounces of silver per year by 2014.

As anticipated in the Feasibility Study and 43-101 Technical Report, the test work shows improvement to the overall recovery and speed of the recovery when the ore is crushed to 80% passing 3/8-inch compared with ¾-inch crushing used during previous column tests (see news release dated 7 October 2010). Highlights of this update include (all figures in this news release are in US dollars):
Recently completed column tests on a representative composite of the Santa Ana ore crushed to 80% passing 3/8-inch returned results that show the long-term recovery of silver is expected to be 75%. This is an improvement from 70% recovery for the ¾-inch crushed ore.
The rate of the recovery is significantly improved over the previous coarsely ground ore with the ultimate 75% recovery being reached in 180 days rather than the 365 day recovery cycle of the ¾-inch crushed sample.
Using the same metal price of $14.50 per ounce for economic analysis the economic results for the Santa Ana Project improve to a pre-tax NPV of $107 million at a 5% discount rate and 29% IRR. After tax NPV increases to $81 million and 25% IRR. (Details of the changes are shown below).
Cash costs per ounce of silver produced decreases from $9.02 to $8.72 per ounce for the life of mine.
Applying $28.19 per ounce (London closing silver price as of January 17) to the finer crushing scenario, the NPV at 5% is $554 million and the IRR increases to 103% (see Tables below).
The details of this modification to the crushing circuit were discussed in detail in the recently filed 43-101 technical report.
The Company filed the project Environmental and Social Impact Assessment ("ESIA") to the Ministry of Energy and Mines on December 23, 2010; maintaining the timeline for approval during Q3 2011.
Andrew Swarthout, President and CEO, states "As anticipated, the now completed column tests show significant improvements in project performance at the finer crush size and further demonstrate the project's strong leverage to the rising silver price. The small incremental capital requirement of $2 million to capture the benefits of the increased silver recovery is covered by our recent financing in 2010. Importantly, the successful filing of the ESIA in December maintains the timeline for production start-up in 2012. "

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