Solitario Signs $4.25 Million Agreement With Placer Dome-Peru On Its Yanacocha Gold-Copper Property.

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 7, 1998--Solitario Resources Corporation today announced that it has signed a Letter Agreement to joint venture its Yanacocha gold-copper property in northern Peru with Placer Dome del Peru S.A.C. ("Placer"), a unit of Placer Dome Inc.

The agreement allows Placer to earn a 60 percent interest in the property by spending US$4.05 million on exploration and making US$200,000 in property payments to Solitario during the next four years. The Letter Agreement is a preliminary agreement subject to a final agreement, which is expected to be completed in approximately one month.

Previous exploration conducted by Solitario and its past joint venture partners identified over a dozen areas of either significant alteration, geochemically anomalous zones or geophysically anomalous signatures of sub-surface rock formations. Placer has experience in the Yanacocha region where it is currently conducting exploration on its La Carpa property, situated approximately 20 kilometers east of Solitario's property boundary.

Solitario's Yanacocha property is 625 square kilometers (155,000 acres) in size and is strategically located in the center of the largest gold producing district in South America. The Minera Yanacocha gold mine, a joint venture between Newmont Mining and Compania de Minas Buenaventura, is currently producing gold at nearly a 1.5 million ounce annual rate with cash production costs in the $100 per ounce range. Reserves and resources now exceed 19 million ounces at Minera Yanacocha, with most of these ounces situated within 2 to 6 kilometers of Solitario's southern property boundary. Beside the Minera Yanacocha gold deposits, seven other major copper-gold, copper, and gold deposits have been discovered to the southeast and northwest of Solitario's land position. These deposits, excluding Minera Yanacocha, are estimated to contain a minimum of 10 million tonnes of copper and 16 million ounces of gold.

Christopher E. Herald, President of Solitario, stated, "Placer Dome brings the technical experience and depth needed to advance this project through the discovery stage. With this joint venture, Solitario now has two major joint venture projects with total combined partner spending of nearly US$32 million over each ventures' respective earn-in periods. These joint ventures demonstrate that Solitario's effective grass-roots exploration programs continue to attract quality joint venture partners."

Solitario is a gold and base metals exploration company actively exploring in Peru. Solitario is a 57.2 percent-owned subsidiary of Crown Resources Corporation (Nasdaq:CRRS) and is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SLR.