Great Basin Resumes Drilling at Golden Cloud Property, Nevada.

Business Editors

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 13, 2004

Ronald W. Thiessen, President and CEO of Great Basin Gold Ltd. (AMEX: GBN) (TSX: GBG) is pleased to announce that the Company has resumed a first phase exploratory drilling program at the Golden Cloud gold project. The Golden Cloud Property is located on the Carlin Trend in Nevada, immediately south of Great Basin's Ivanhoe property.

Golden Cloud lies on the eastern margin of the Northern Nevada Rift system at its intersection with the Carlin Trend. The property is contiguous with the southern boundary of the Ivanhoe claim block, about three kilometres south of the Hollister Development Block where the high-grade gold-silver Clementine-Gwenivere vein systems are currently being developed by Great Basin and Hecla Mining Company. The Silver Cloud prospect, discovered by Placer Dome and Teck Cominco and recently acquired by Geologix Exploration Inc., is located immediately to the west of the Golden Cloud property.

The principal targets at Golden Cloud are 'bonanza style' epithermal vein gold deposits. Outcrops of silica sinter and silica replacement bodies with widespread cinnabar mineralization hosted by Tertiary volcanic rocks occur on the property. Gravity and magnetic anomalies, and mineralized fractures and sinter trends indicate the presence of northwest and north-northwest trending structures, like those in the nearby Silver Cloud deposit and further to the northwest at Newmont's Ken Snyder mine. A second target area occurs at the northern part of the property. Here, an extensive, structurally-controlled zone of sinter and silicified volcanic rocks strikes northward toward the area of the past producing Hollister pit and its feeder vein sets (Clementine & Gwenivere) on the Ivanhoe property.

Surface exploration by Great Basin in late 2003 identified several structural zones, with associated chalcedonic alteration and anomalous mercury and gold values, for drilling. Approximately 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) of reverse circulation drilling are planned, designed to test for epithermal alteration and gold mineralization at depth. This program was re-scheduled from earlier this year due to unusually wet and muddy conditions at site.

Great Basin can earn a 70% interest in the property from Atna Resources Ltd. by spending $2,500,000 on exploration and development, including a minimum of 30,000 feet of drilling, making cash payments to Atna, and assuming underlying option and property maintenance payments. Upon fulfilling the earn-in requirements, the companies would form a 70:30 joint venture for further exploration and development of the property.

Great Basin is an exploration and development company with gold assets on the Carlin Trend in Nevada and the Witwatersrand Goldfield in South Africa. The Company expects to begin underground exploration and development on the Ivanhoe property in Nevada in 2004, while simultaneously advancing the Burnstone Project in South Africa and Golden Cloud Project in Nevada.

Details of resource estimates and the QA/QC program are provided in technical reports filed on www.sedar.com. For additional details on Great Basin and its Gold Properties, please visit the Company's website at www.hdgold.com www.greatbasingold.com or contact Investor Services at [phone] or within North America at 1-800-667-2114.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Ronald W. Thiessen, President and CEO

No regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained in this news release.