Overview

Country:	Ecuador
Stage of Project:	Development
Ownership:	100% IMZ
Land Position:	58 sq km

The Rio Blanco gold-silver development project is progressing towards production. (Please refer to our news releases for the latest updates related to Rio Blanco.) The project is situated on the western flank of the Western Cordillera in southwestern Ecuador. Elevations in the main target area range from 3,000 meters to 4,000 meters. The project is located approximately 50 km west of Cuenca and approximately 320 km southwest of Quito. IMZ’s Gaby gold property is located approximately 45 km west-southwest of the Rio Blanco property. Resources at Rio Blanco are hosted in an epithermal gold-silver vein deposit, characterized by multiple high-grade gold-silver veins.

A positive feasibility study was completed in 2006. Please refer to the Rio Blanco Technical Report, entitled “The Alejandra North Vein, Rio Blanco Gold and Silver Project, Feasibility Study, Ecuador” and dated January 30, 2006, by clicking here. The Rio Blanco Technical Report was filed on SEDAR and is available for review under IMZ’s name at www.sedar.com.

Property Description

The property consists of four mining concessions, San Luis A2, Miguir, Canoas and Canoas I which in aggregate comprise approximately 5,799 hectares (approximately 58 sq. km). The four mining concessions (San Luis A2, Miguir, Canoas and Canoas I) are contiguous claims and are 100%-owned by IMZ, subject to IMZ making certain remaining property option payments and a 2.5% NSR royalty. The known mineral resources on the Rio Blanco property are located in the central portion of IMZ’s mining concessions, entirely within the San Luis A2, Canoas and Canoas 1 concessions. There are presently no known mineral resources on the Miguir concession.

Exploration History

An initial, regional-scale reconnaissance sampling stream sediment survey was conducted by Rio Tinto in 1994. Gold mineralization was discovered on the Canoas concession in 1995. During 1996 and 1997, Rio Tinto (as part of a joint venture signed with IMZ in 1996) conducted geological mapping, including extensive surface rock geochemical sampling, geophysics, limited metallurgical testwork and core drilling.

In 1997, Rio Tinto completed 47 core holes for a total of 5,858m testing the areas now known as Alejandra South, Dorada North and Dorada South. Drill results from the northern extremity of the Alejandra South zone included intercepts starting from the surface of 34.5m at 12.3 g/t gold and 27m at 10.4 g/t gold. From 1999 to 2005, IMZ completed four additional phases of core drilling totaling almost 38,000m in 264 drill holes, focused primarily on the Alejandra and Dorada zones. Recent positive assay results (from uncut assays and estimated true widths) include 3.4m grading 60.1 g/t gold in the Bolivar Zone, 3.7m grading 14.8 g/t gold in the Alejandra North Zone, 3.2m grading 9.0 g/t gold in the San Luis Zone.

Exploration Outlook

Exploration will focus on drilling possible extensions to the Alejandra vein and exploring the adjacent Bolivar vein. Other drill targets to be tested include the Dorada zone, located south of the Alejandra vein, as well as a large unexplored area of the property.

Geology and Mineralization

The epithermal mineralization on the Rio Blanco property occurs in the southwest part of the Western Cordillera, close to the Bulubulu Fault. Important epithermal districts also occur a short distance to the west of the fault, at San Gerardo and Bella Rica, the latter districts located adjacent to IMZ’s Gaby gold project. Mineralization at the Rio Blanco property is recognized to be of the low-sulfidation epithermal (adularia-sericite) type. The style of mineralization at the Rio Blanco project shows similarities to the El Peñón deposit (of Meridian Gold Inc.) in northern Chile. Both are Tertiary low-sulfidation epithermal systems and both comprise quartz veins and hydrothermal breccias with “bonanza-type” (i.e. very high-grade) gold/silver values in some areas of the deposits. In addition, at both properties the principal control on the precious metal mineralization is district-scale faulting.

Precious metal mineralization on the Rio Blanco property extends discontinuously for over 3km in a north-south direction, from the Loma Larga area in the north to the Migsiguigshi area in the south, with a surface expression ranging from 750m to over 1,000m in width. In vertical extent, the overall epithermal system with high-grade values spans over 500m from elevations in the Dorada area at around 3,400m to the Alejandra North Vein to the north at about 3,900m. Worldwide, the high-grade mineralized zones in epithermal deposits are generally less than 200m in vertical extent, in some cases less than 100m. In the case of Hishikari, Japan, it is only approximately 50m.

Qualified Person

The technical information reported here was supervised and reviewed by IMZ’s Qualified Persons, Technical Manager Nick Appleyard and Operations Manager Gordon Grams.