BC Government Proceeding with Certificate Amendment Process for Taseko’s New Prosperity Project

Courtesy of Taseko Mines Ltd:

Taseko Mines Limited (TSX: TKO; NYSE MKT: TGB) (“Taseko” or the “Company”) today announced that the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office is proceeding with Taseko’s request to amend the environmental assessment certificate for its New Prosperity Gold/Copper Project in central British Columbia.

In addition to this undertaking, Taseko will be filing a Notice of Work (NOW) with the Ministry of Energy & Mines which will allow the Company to gather information to advance mine permitting under the British Columbia Mines Act. Taseko looks forward to working with the six local Tsilhqot’in First Nation bands as represented by the Tsilhqot’in National Government on the consultative and substantive aspects of the NOW as per the terms in the 2012 settlement agreement.

“Ownership and development of mineral resources are explicit areas of provincial jurisdiction and responsibility, granted under The 1982 Amendments to the Constitution Act 1867,” commented Russell Hallbauer, President and CEO of Taseko. “The New Prosperity environmental assessment process has been unduly influenced by the actions of the federal government. The fact that the Government of British Columbia is moving forward with the certificate amendment process indicates the importance it places on the development of the New Prosperity Mine.”

Mr. Hallbauer continued, “The Government of Canada’s position, regarding the federal authorizations required for New Prosperity, can be rectified if discussions around the salient issues raised by the Federal Panel in 2013 are objectively and scientifically reviewed. The information we will gather from the Notice of Work field program will aid those discussions.”

New Prosperity is the largest undeveloped gold/copper porphyry in North America and contains 11 million ounces gold and four billion pounds of copper and, when in production, will produce 250,000 ounces of gold and 110 million pounds of copper annually for 20 years.

Mineral Reserves @ c$5.50 NSR/t Cut-Off
	Size M Tonnes	Grade		Recoverable Metal		Contained Metal
		Au (g/t)	Cu (%)	Au (M oz)	Cu (B lbs)	Au (M oz)	Cu (B lbs)
Proven	481	0.46	0.26	5.0	2.4	7.1	2.8
Probable	350	0.35	0.18	2.7	1.2	3.9	1.4
Total	831	0.41	0.23	7.7	3.6	11.0	4.2

Note: Recoveries for Cu and Au are 87% and 69% respectively.

Remaining measured and indicated resources are grading 0.40 g/t gold and 0.30% copper containing 2.3 million ounces of gold and 1.2 billion lbs of copper (no recoveries applied).

The mineral resource and reserve estimations were completed by Taseko staff under the supervision of Scott Jones, P.Eng., Vice-President, Engineering and a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Mr Jones has verified the methods used to determine grade and tonnage in the geological model, reviewed the long range mine plan, and directed the updated economic evaluation. The estimates for the reserves used long term metal prices of US$1.65/lb for copper and US$650/oz for gold and a foreign exchange of C$0.82 per US dollar. Mr Jones has reviewed this release. A technical report is filed on www.sedar.com.