Increased Internet Attention

The announcement of the start of production has caused a great deal of interest in our stock. As each press release comes out, many websites are picking them up and others are providing profiles and summaries at no cost to our firm. The two most recent are 24hgold & Stock Profile. We are supplying others with the specifics for future inclusion on their websites as well.

Insider Buying

On April 20, 2010 Chairman of the Board Lawrence Olson purchased 100,000 shares of Santa Fe Gold Corporation, at nearly $100,000 in cost. Thereportshows that, although Mr. Olson already owns one of the largest positions in the company, he has continued faith that Santa Fe Gold Corporation has great prospects for the future. Mr. Olson was responsible for hiring our CEO Dr. Carson in 2004 and runs a business in nearby Arizona. Any successful businessman knows there are always places to use money, yet he chose to make an even greater investment in Santa Fe Gold Corporation. This signifies a tremendous vote of confidence in the firm. Also noteworthy is that NONE of the insiders have sold a single share, an even greater measure of the likelihood for success in the future. If the management is buying and not selling, what does that tell you?

Please Update Your First Name and State Of Residence

We are trying to create a more useful database on our Email Briefings email list. Please go to our website and in the top right corner enter your email address. That will allow you to gain access to the area in which you can update your profile. If you would include your first name and state of residence, that will assist us in contacting you for events in your area. Any other information you wish to add, such as contact phone and whether or not you are a current shareholder, is also useful. Of course your information is STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL and shared with no others. Thank you.

A Visit To Santa Fe Gold Corporation, Day 1

by R. J. Bommarito

Santa Fe Gold Corporation is efficient.

As I have mentioned, I recently had the privilege of visiting the mill in Lordsburg, New Mexico, the mine in Duncan, Arizona, and the home office in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have been able to express my observations over a few radio shows recently and I encourage you to listen for even greater detail if you have not already done so. See the News Tab on our website for even more media recordings. Many more pictures are now posted here and then by clicking the "latest photos from Summit" link.

The first thing that is noteworthy is that I left Detroit in the morning and by early afternoon I was touring the Lordsburg mill! That even included a stop in Dallas. A flight to Tucson, Arizona and a two hour drive east to Lordsburg put me within 10 minutes of the mill. The road to the mill is paved all the way to the front door and is maintained by the county. My travel details may seem insignificant, but to those in the mining industry it is virtually unheard of. Frequently mining operations are located in foreign countries and require several methods of transportation to reach. It often takes more than a day just to make the journey. Roads are often unpaved, and many need to be maintained by the mining company rather than the local municipality. There was no snow, rain, weather, language barrier, currency exchange, or any impediment to travel. I of course appreciated this, but the fact that this company has located itself thusly, is huge to our future prospects. Whether it be travel by shareholders like myself or bankers, analysts, private money managers, institutional investors, newsletter writers, potential investors, employees, managers, or even the press, we are accessible. Santa Fe Gold Corporation is efficient.

The scene that greeted me was a fully functioning mill and lab. I will be posting more pictures on the website soon, but lets take a moment here to see what I saw. Starting on the middle left is the supply and maintenance building housing welding, fabrication, supplies, electrical controls and storage. The top right building houses the milling and concentrations equipment and operations - the core of the mill. There is a man walking into the large open door in a red shirt for perspective of size. The ball mill is located to the far right, while the ready to process ore is piled up in the middle right, currently being fed by a loading conveyor. The primary crushing equipment is in the center. The lab is in the left lower quadrant, located away from the vibrations of the plant. The pipe delivering the tailing to the tailings pond snakes its way along the lower right from the mill out to the pond. There are two pipes for a backup in case one gets silted up, the other can immediately be put into use to continue operations. There is a third smaller pipe following the same route for returning water back to the mill. These pipes carry the watery slurry of waste material to a settlement pond (called a tailings pond) where the tailings settle out and the water is left on the surface. We will be using that water in the operations as soon as it is deep enough. By the time you read this, we will very likely be recycling the waste water. Also noteworthy is that the recycled water is the right ph for the operations and therefore requires no additional treatment for use in the mill. Santa Fe Gold Corporation is efficient.

Not visible are:

A) the stockpile of ore that has been trucked from the mine and is waiting processing. It is located out of sight to the left.

B) the two water tanks supplying the operations, which sit on a small hill to the right.

C) The public electrical power grid providing continuous power.

D) Since the mill site is sitting on top of a former copper/gold mine, there is an existing water supply providing ample water for operations, also off camera to our right.

E) The tailings pond is to the lower left of this shot.

F) The small administrative building is far left.

G) The scale for trucks entering is also located to our far left. Another picture below will show a few of these details.

Now let's look a little deeper. Notice that the entire operation is served by a single light pole that illuminates the site for future around the clock operation: The site is located in a hollow of sorts, giving a measure of privacy and security. Notice that the crushing equipment and the crushed ore are sitting in the open and do not require protection from rain or snow. Because the region is semi-arid, the problem of rain and snow is virtually eliminated. The front gate is only a few miles from Lordsburg, New Mexico. Motels, restaurants, an interstate highway, a railroad siding for trains, employees, gasoline, and airport are all nearby in Lordsburg.    And did I mention that it is near other mines and mills so the local population has mining experience and they are favorable to it? Santa Fe Gold Corporation is efficient.

In the above picture you can see the surface water run-off pond, and center left is the administrative building. The stockpiles of ore are almost dead center. The road that leads into the site comes by the administrative building on the far left. Truck scales are adjacent to the admin building.

The operations of a gold producer are as follows: Mine the ore, truck it to a processing plant (a mill), process it into a saleable product (concentrate), sell the product to a smelter, repeat. The mine is harder to photograph, but in my Day 2 posting I will provide some photographs and commentary.

Let's see the details of the mill operations up close. The first step is crushing the ore that comes from the mine. This picture shows some of that operation, which is called a crushing circuit. The raw ore is loaded, then crushed, screened, crushed further, then sent via conveyor to the feed pile for the mill, called the fine ore pad. You can see the ore in the right half of the picture, piled and ready to be milled.

The ore is crushed to a particular size and then, as in this photograph, is gravity fed onto a conveyor located below the pile on the fine ore pad.

Next it is fed into the ball mill, my favorite part of the operation!

Now the ball mill...what a cool piece of equipment. This is a giant rotating cylinder filled with literally cannon ball sized balls of iron. Water and crushed ore are fed into one end and by the time the ore makes its way thought the tortuous path within, the ore has been ground to a fine powder and the slurry that emerges is ready for the next step called flotation. The machine in not very loud, yet not quiet, but the powerful forces that turn it and the obvious grinding that occurs within, are fascinating to a 55 year old man who still has not allowed the boy within to leave him. Wow!

Next time:

Inside The Mill: Flotation, Settling And Drying. The process of taking that slurry and extracting the precious metals concentrate for recovery.

A Trip to the Summit Silver-Gold Mine. The place where the silver and gold are situated, waiting to be removed by underground mining.

Next edition: more on the mill and a visit to the mine.