Paramount Gold and Silver Reports Excellent Recoveries From Leaching of San Miguel Project Open Pit Material

WINNEMUCCA, NEVADA--(Marketwired - May 27, 2014) - Paramount Gold and Silver Corp. (PZG.TO)(NYSE MKT:PZG)(P6G.F) (WKN:A0HGKQ) ("Paramount") announced today that a new round of metallurgical testing has confirmed that heap leaching of mid-to-lower grade open pit material from its 100%-owned San Miguel Project in Mexico is likely feasible. These results could substantially increase estimated resources, mine life and project economics in an updated Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) scheduled for completion during July of this year. The metallurgical testing conducted by McClelland Laboratories of Reno, Nevada (www.mettest.com), focused on gold and silver recoveries from the San Francisco and San Antonio deposits.

In a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) completed last year, Metal Mining Consultants ("MMC") (www.metalminingconsultants.com) of Denver, Colorado determined that the most efficient recovery process for the abundant high-grade gold and silver material at San Miguel is a mill circuit followed by whole rock cyanide leach and a Merrill Crowe gold and silver recovery plant. A 200 mesh particle size (mill scenario) optimizes recoveries for the high-grade compared to a 1/4 to 3/4 inch crush size typical in a heap leach operation. The higher cost milling scenario requires a higher cut-off grade which excludes mid-to-lower-grade open pit material which can be mined inexpensively. As a result, the 2013 PEA does not include a significant portion of the project's global resource, particularly from the bulk-mineable San Francisco and San Antonio deposits. (For PEA details see February 28, 2013 news release).

To address this issue of the mid-to-lower-grade open pit material, Paramount last year commissioned McClelland to conduct initial cyanide bottle roll tests to evaluate the heap leach potential of different crush sizes. Gold recoveries up to 83.8% were achieved from 1/4 inch crush size material after 96 hours of cyanide leach time for San Francisco which is primarily a gold deposit with lower silver grades (see November 6, 2013 news release). McClelland was then commissioned to undertake more bottle roll tests on samples representing the different types of mineralization, at the 1/4 inch size, which is commonly used in heap leaching.

In the new program, 36 composited samples were taken representing oxide, mixed and sulfide material from the San Francisco and San Antonio deposits and subjected to cyanidation. Gold recoveries for San Francisco oxide samples ranged from 70% to 94% with an average of 81%; recoveries from partially oxidized samples ("mixed" material) ranged between 49% and 85% of the gold with an average of 64%. The oxide and mixed categories account for the majority of the open pit material in this deposit. Reagent consumption was relatively low by industry standards.