Minera Andes Retains Engineering Firm to Determine Gold/Silver Resource At the Huevos Verdes Vein in Argentina

Business Wire, April 10, 2002

Business Editors

SPOKANE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 10, 2002

Minera Andes Inc. (the "Corporation") is pleased to announce that it has commissioned Snowden Mining Industry Consultants Inc. ("Snowden") to establish an independent resource calculation on the developing Huevos Verdes high-grade gold/silver vein project in southern Argentina, where underground construction is scheduled for later this year.

Snowden is an internationally recognized consulting engineering firm headquartered in Australia and will produce a report that conforms to Canadian National Instrument 43-101 rules and regulations. The Snowden staff based in Vancouver, B.C. will complete the study.

The resource calculation will be based on drilling by the Corporation and its joint venture partner, Mauricio Hochschild & Cia. Ltda. ("MHC"). This work marks a further step in the evolution of Huevos Verdes as a vein with the potential for sizeable quantities of gold/silver mineralization. To date, 32 of 53 holes drilled in four campaigns at Huevos Verdes have intersected high-grade gold and silver over potentially mineable widths. This is a 60 percent success rate, considered high by exploration/drilling standards for vein system drilling. Successive drill campaigns have drilled deeper and more extensively along strike, and have encountered new high-grade mineralization at each stage. Currently, almost all of the drilling is confined to approximately 2 kilometers of the known 5 kilometers of strike length for the Huevos Verdes vein, which remains open at depth and along strike.

The Huevos Verdes vein is in the early stages of development in an area that is evolving into a district scale target. Huevos Verdes is one of eight gold/silver veins known to exist within a 20- km long trend in the northern portion of the Corporation's 88,000 hectare epithermal gold/silver land package. Drilling by MHC is scheduled to start soon to test five vein targets adjacent to Huevos Verdes.

Numerous factors suggest a strong potential to expand the resource at Huevos Verdes. Factors include the high rate of success (60 percent) in drilling high-grade intersections; the wide extent of known mineralization within a broad zone of hydrothermal overprint; the continuity of the vein system; the presence of numerous other veins nearby; and the fact that the system is open at depth and along strike.

The Corporation has noted that production costs at veins similar to Huevos Verdes, as the mineralization is presently understood, are typically less than $100 per gold-equivalent ounce.

MHC is earning a 51 percent ownership in the Huevos Verdes project under terms of a joint venture and operating agreement signed in 2001. Terms of the agreement include the expenditure of US$3 million by MHC over three years to earn 51 percent ownership; the expenditure of a minimum of US$100,000 on other targets within the land package; and payment to the Corporation of US$400,000 per year.

MHC, a metal mining and cement production company, specializes in the mining of vein-hosted metal deposits. It produces about 450,000 ounces of gold, 10 million ounces of silver, and approximately one million tons of cement annually.

Minera Andes is a mining exploration corporation that controls approximately 12 projects on about 163,000 hectares (402,733 acres) of mineral exploration land in Argentina. Most of the properties are located in the Andean cordillera and primarily contain gold, silver and copper mineralization targets. The Corporation is presently pursuing the further development of its gold/silver discovery property in Santa Cruz province.

For further information, please contact: Allen V. Ambrose, president, at the Spokane office, or Krister A. Kottmeier, investor relations--Canada, at the Vancouver office. Visit our Web site: www.minandes.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENT-- Although Minera Andes believes many of its properties have promising potential, its properties are in the early stages of exploration. None have yet been shown to contain proven or probable mineral reserves. There can be no assurance that such reserves will be identified on any property, or that, if identified, mineralization may be economically extracted.

THE CANADIAN VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.