Bellavista Property

Bellavista Property

The Bellavista property is located within the Costa Rican “Gold Belt”, approximately 70 kilometres northeast of San José. The Company holds one exploitation concession covering a 7 square kilometre area. The Bellavista Mine was previously operated by Glencairn Gold Corporation as a heap leach operation. Mining operations were suspended by Glencairn in July 2007 due to indications of a potential massive ground movement, which in part were caused by water saturation due to abnormally high rainfall during the preceding several years. Following the suspension of mining operations, Glencairn undertook a program of rinsing the heap leach with fresh water to remove cyanide from the heap, and a monitoring program to evaluate ground movement concerns. In October 2007, a landslide at the Bellavista Mine occurred resulting in damage to the East side of the heap leach pad and the recovery plant. The preventative measures taken by Glencairn averted a potential environmental disaster.

From October 2007 until now, Glencairn and B2Gold have conducted a number of mitigations measures, extensive monitoring programs and site reclamation. Tetra Tech Inc., working directly for the Secretaria Tecnica National Ambiental (“SETENA”) which is the lead regulatory agency in Costa Rica, recently completed environmental and closure audits which show that the landslide has remained stable since the initial movement in October 2007 and there has been no contamination of surface and groundwater as a result of this incident. The B2Gold’s reclamation activities continue with the planting of over 1,000 trees on portions of the waste dump area and with work programs focused on controlling runoff from rain storms and keeping water levels from building up in the slide area.

B2Gold is investigating various alternatives relating to the Bellavista property, including the potential for re-opening the mine on the Bellavista property using different technologies, including a milling and carbon-in-leach process. B2Gold has secured property for a potential tailing pond.

B2Gold has had Initial positive meetings with the federal and local government regarding a permit addendum. Proactive social programs have been initiated with local communities.

The Bellavista Mine’s historical production was approximately 3.1 million tons at a grade of 1.65 g/t containing 165,000 ounces of gold. The mine produced approximately 80,000 ounces of gold during this period (approximately 50% recovery).

The Bellavista property has proven and probable reserves of 314,000 ounces, and measured and indicated resources of 421,000 ounces. The average grade of the reserves is 1.41 g/t gold with a low strip ratio of 1.3 to 1. The resource grade was estimated at 1.18 g/t.

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