Excelsior Commences Drilling at Gunnison

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Jan. 12, 2011) - Excelsior Mining Corp. (TSX VENTURE:MIN) -

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Excelsior Mining Corp. ("Excelsior") is pleased to announce that drilling has commenced at the Gunnison Copper Property located within the copper porphyry belt in southern Arizona. The 2011 Phase I program will consist of 10,000 meters (m) of drilling and preliminary hydrological and metallurgical tests.

Gunnison contains a National Instrument (NI) 43-101 inferred resource of 4.77 billion pounds of copper (787 million tons at 0.30% copper) which remains open for expansion (see news release dated November 2, 2010). Approximately 7,000 m of drilling will be targeted towards upgrading the resource from the inferred to the indicated category. Management expects that the majority of the oxide resource will be upgraded. The remaining 3,000 m of drilling will test exploration targets, with the goal of increasing the global copper resource. An updated resource estimate will be carried out following the completion of this drill program.

Over two-thirds of the copper occurs as oxide copper, which has the potential to be mined using in-situ recovery (ISR) methods. ISR is a low cost, environmentally sound process of extracting metals from deposits and has been commercially used in Arizona to extract copper. Hydrological and metallurgical test work will commence later this quarter in order to confirm previous results that demonstrate that Gunnison can be mined using ISR. 

Additional information and maps showing drill hole locations, as well as the NI 43-101 Technical Report, can be found on Excelsior's website at: www.excelsiormining.com.

Stephen Twyerould (Fellow of AUSIMM), President and CEO of Excelsior and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and is responsible for the technical information contained in this news release.

About Excelsior

Excelsior is an exploration and development company with a copper project located within the copper porphyry belt of Arizona. The Gunnison Copper Project is located close to the required infrastructure and with its in-situ recovery potential, is intended for near-term production. The Excelsior team consists of experienced professionals with proven track records of advancing projects towards production.

Further details about Excelsior can be found on Excelsior's website at: http://www.excelsiormining.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE EXCELSIOR BOARD

Stephen Twyerould, President & CEO

Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", and "intend", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could", "should", or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation; statements about the terms of the Transaction and final Exchange approval are forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mineral exploration; fluctuations in commodity prices; title matters; environmental liability claims and insurance; reliance on key personnel; the potential for conflicts of interest among certain officers, directors or promoters with certain other projects; the absence of dividends; competition; dilution; the volatility of our common share price and volume and the additional risks identified the management discussion and analysis section of our interim and most recent annual financial statement or other reports and filings with the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable Canadian securities regulations. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and Excelsior undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.