January 15th, 2003

Dome Mine Senior Metallurgist Don Strickland (centre) flanked by refiners Louis Kuret (left) and Rick Lawlor (right) are all smiles as they display the proceeds of the first gold pour from the Consep ACACIA Reactor (background left) recently commissioned at Placer Dome's Dome Mine in Ontario, Canada.

TIMMINS, Canada - The largest ConSep ACACIA Reactor built to date, a Model CS6000, was successfully commissioned at the Porcupine JV near Timmins, Ontario in mid December, 2002.

The Porcupine JV is a joint venture between Placer Dome Canada and Kinross Gold Corporation. Placer Dome owns a 51% interest, while Kinross has a 49% interest in the joint venture, which now incorporates the Dome mine and mill, the Hoyle Pond, Pamour and Nighthawk Lake mines, and the Bell Creek mill.

Ore from both the Dome and Hoyle Pond Mines are now treated at the Dome mill, which has a gravity circuit consisting of five (5) KC-CD30 concentrators operating in parallel grinding circuits.

The ACACIA Reactor was put online on December 17th, 2002, just two weeks after arriving on site.

"A tremendous amount of credit must be given to the project installation team," commented Knelson's Mike Fullam; Regional Sales Manager for North America. "The unit was fully installed and ready for commissioning when we arrived."

The first batch was processed in the ACACIA Reactor on December 17th and yielded 35.6 kgs. of gold at an overall recovery rate of 99% .

"We had a very tight project schedule that didn't leave us any margin for error," stated the Dome's Senior Metallurgist Don Strickland. "Thanks to a great team effort we managed to meet our goal of being fully operational and producing gold by year end."

The ConSep ACACIA Reactor is a patented, high efficiency leaching system, exclusively designed to handle the high- grade concentrates produced by Knelson Concentrators. The system is designed to maximize gold recovery from gravity concentrates and provide numerous process advantages over a conventional gold room.

Knelson manufactures and distributes the ConSep ACACIA Reactor in North America as part of a global marketing alliance with ConSep Pty. of Australia.

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