Mr. Andrew Swarthout reports

BEAR CREEK ANNOUNCES APPROVAL OF CORANI ESIA, PERU

The Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines has approved the environmental and social impact assessment for Bear Creek Mining Corp.'s Corani silver- lead-zinc project located in southern Peru.

Corani represents a rare asset class containing 270 million ounces of silver and 4.8 billion pounds of combined lead and zinc which is forecasted to produce over 13 million ounces of silver per year at a negative cost of 45 cents per ounce of silver, net of byproduct credits, for the first five years of a 22-year mine life. Subsequent steps in the advancement of the Corani project are intended to include detailed engineering followed by construction permits flowing from the ESIA.

Andrew Swarthout, Bear Creek's chief executive officer, states: "We sincerely appreciate the strong support from the local communities and the various Peruvian ministries, including MEM, during the approval process. We also express our gratitude to the Peruvian central government for establishing investments in infrastructure along side of our life-of-mine community investment commitments. Bear Creek is excited to move this important project forward towards development."

Mr. Swarthout continues: "We are also encouraged by recent conversations with the Peruvian government towards the resolution of issues regarding the Santa Ana silver project, which remains under the conditions of the supreme decree issued in June, 2011. The successful resolution of these issues and returning Bear Creek's right to operate Santa Ana is critical to the company's ability to raise financing for the construction of Corani. Based upon the successful acquisition of the social license through long-term community investment agreements at Corani, we strongly believe that the model has been demonstrated that will establish social license at Santa Ana. We look forward to working with the government and local communities in reaching a resolution thereby avoiding ongoing and future litigation while providing the opportunity for advancing Santa Ana and providing much needed employment, investment, and revenues in those local communities."

All of Bear Creek's exploration programs and pertinent disclosure of a technical or scientific nature are prepared by or prepared under the direct supervision of Andrew Swarthout, PGeo, chief executive officer, who serves as the qualified person under the definitions of National Instrument 43-101. The block model estimate, mine design and schedules were prepared by Independent Mining Consultants of Tucson, Ariz. John Marek, PE, acted as the independent qualified person as defined by Canada's National Instrument 43-101. Additionally the methods used in determining and reporting the mineral reserves and resources are consistent with the CIM best practices guidelines. The method used in the resource calculation is equivalent to the method used in the resource calculation shown in the company's Aug. 23, 2006, press release. For this resource estimate Bear Creek has used metal prices based on a three-year backward average and a two-year forward price based on the metal markets in August, 2011.

Assumptions used in the mineral reserve and FS model by IMC are:

• Silver price: $18 per ounce;
• Zinc price: 85 cents per pound;
• Lead price: 85 cents per pound;
• Mixed sulphide material silver recovery is fixed at 62 per cent to lead con and an additional 14 per cent to the zinc con when zinc head grade is greater than 0.7 per cent, 10.4-per-cent silver recovery when zinc head grade is from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent, 6.3-per-cent recovery of silver to the zinc con when zinc head grade is from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent and no silver recovery to the zinc con when zinc head grades are less than 0.3 per cent;
• Zinc recovery: 67.5 per cent to zinc con when the zinc head grade is greater than 0.7 per cent, 50-per-cent zinc recovery when zinc head grade is from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent, 30-per-cent recovery of zinc to the zinc con when zinc head grade is from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent and no zinc recovery to the zinc con when zinc head grades are less than 0.3 per cent;
• Lead recovery: 75 per cent to lead con;
• For transitional material silver recovery: 38.5 per cent plus 0.2 times silver grade (g/t) (maximum 70-per-cent recovery) to lead con and 0 per cent to the zinc con;
• Zinc recovery: 0 per cent to zinc con and lead recovery: 38 per cent plus 10.9 times lead grade (per cent) (maximum 65-per-cent recovery) to lead con;
• Average smelter charges including treatment charges and refining charges and metal deducts against saleable metal:
  • Silver: $1.52 per ounce;
  • Zinc: 62 cents per pound;
  • Lead: 41 cents per pound;
• Mining costs per tonne: $1.34;
• Process cost per tonne: $8;
• General and administrative per processed tonne: $1.20;
• Pit slopes: 42 degrees in mineralized tuff and 46 degrees in postmineralized tuff;
• The resulting mineral reserve cut-off is $10.54 per tonne ore NSR;
• The mineral reserves are contained within a practical mining plan that utilized the floating-cone method as an initial guide for design.

                                                                
                                MINERAL RESERVES, $10.54 NSR CUT-OFF                                 

                                                     Contained metal             Equivalent ounces   
Category          Ktonnes Silver Lead Zinc      Silver        Lead        Zinc  Eq. silver Eq. silver
                             g/t    %    %  million oz  million lb  million lb  million oz        g/t   
                                                                                                     
Proven             30,083   66.6 1.04 0.60        64.4       690.4       399.9       115.7      119.6
Probable          126,047   50.7 0.87 0.47       205.6     2,422.6     1,297.7       381.5       94.1
                  -------   ---- ---- ----       -----     -------     -------       -----      -----
Proven plus 
probable          156,130   53.8 0.90 0.49       270.0     3,113.0     1,697.6       497.2       99.1

The mineral resource portion of the project is contained in a larger pit than the FS design pit, which was a floating cone using the following input assumptions:

• Silver price: $30 per ounce;
• Zinc price: $1 per pound;
• Lead price: $1 per pound;
• Mixed oxide material that was given 0-per-cent recovery for the reserves was assumed to have an 85-per-cent recovery of silver, all other recoveries remained the same. The mineral resource cut-off was $9.20 per tonne which represents the internal process cut-off. All metallurgical material types were included in the resource.

All diamond drilling has been performed using HQ-diameter core with recoveries averaging greater than 95 per cent. Core is logged and split on site under the supervision of Bear Creek geologists. Sampling is done on two-metre intervals and samples are transported by company staff to Juliaca, Peru, for direct shipping to ALS Chemex Laboratories in Lima, Peru. ALS Chemex is an ISO 9001:2000-registered laboratory and is preparing for ISO 17025 certification. Silver, lead and zinc assays utilize a multiacid digestion with atomic absorption. The quality assurance/quality control program includes the insertion every 20th sample of known standards prepared by SGS Laboratories, Lima. A section in Bear Creek's website is dedicated to sampling, assay and quality control procedures.

The FS was prepared by a team of independent engineering consultants. The mining and block model portion was prepared by Independent Mining Consultants of Tucson, Ariz., John Marek, PE, acting as qualified person. The process plant design was prepared by M3 Engineering, Dan Neff, PE, acting as qualified person. Metallurgy and process design criteria developed by Blue Coast Metallurgy Ltd. Chris Martin, CEng, acting as qualified person. And geotechnical, environmental, infrastructure, waste stockpile and tailings designs were prepared by Global Resource Engineering Ltd., Chris Chapman, PE, acting as the qualified person. Each of these individuals has read and approves the respective scientific and technical disclosure contained in this news release. Silver equivalency calculation represents the contained equivalent silver ounces contained in the ground and is based on the resource metal prices assumptions of $18 per ounce silver, 85 cents per pound and 85 cents per pound zinc, and recoveries to concentrate of 64.2 per cent for silver and 71.1 per cent for lead and 51.6 per cent for zinc. The calculation does not take into account the net smelter payment terms for the different metals in the two separate concentrates. The resulting equivalency is one ounce silver equals 19.1 pounds lead and one ounce silver equals 26.3 pounds zinc.

Total cash cost per ounce of silver is calculated in accordance with a standard approved by the Silver Institute, a non-profit international association that draws its membership from across the breadth of the silver industry. Adoption of the standard is voluntary and the cost measures presented may not be comparable with other similarly titled measures of other companies. Total cash cost includes mine site operating costs such as mining, processing, administration, and treatment and refining charges, but is exclusive of amortization, reclamation, capital, exploration costs and taxes on income. Total cash costs are reduced by lead and zinc byproduct revenues, and then divided by silver ounces sold to arrive at total cash cost of per ounce of silver, net of byproduct revenues. Previously, the company included reclamation costs as a component of its total cash cost per ounce of silver.

The company has elected to follow the Silver Institute's cash cost standard, and has therefore excluded reclamation costs from its calculation of total cash cost per ounce of silver.

We seek Safe Harbor.