Toronto,Ontario - Nov 10, 1997

South American Gold and Copper Company Limited Reports Progress on Plans for 1,500,000 Ton per Year Cement Manufacturing Facility

Santiago, Chile- South American Gold and Copper Company Limited (TSE symbol SAG) announced today that its 50.10% owned subsidiary, Compania Minera Catedral, has made substantial progress in the development of plans for a 1,500,000 ton per year cement manufacturing facility.

Working with Penta Engineering Corp. of St. Louis, Missouri, USA, project manager on the Feasibility Study and a leading engineering and consulting firm specializing in the design and engineering of cement manufacturing facilities, and Willbros Engineering Inc., a subsidiary of Willbros USA, Inc., Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Company has confirmed that it is feasible to construct and operate a 90 kilometer limestone slurry pipeline from the location of its Catedral/Rino limestone deposits to a proposed plant site approximately 80 kilometers south of Santiago at an operating cost of less than US $1.50 per ton of limestone, with a payback period on investment of less than five years. Willbros USA, Inc., one of the world’s leading pipeline engineering and construction firms, has designed and constructed more than 200,000 kilometers of pipeline worldwide since its founding in 1915.

The Company also announced that as a result of recently developed technology related to slurry pipeline systems, moisture content of the limestone slurry can be kept at a minimum. This has enable Penta Engineering Corp. to incorporate in its design plans for the cement manufacturing facility a newly developed flash drying process with a pre-heater kiln, pre-heater calciner which will substantially reduce energy costs to near “dry process energy costs” at industry standard capital costs”

The Company also announced that substantial progress has been made in developing a detailed mine plan for mining cement rock limestone from an open pit at its Rino deposit at less than US $2.00 per ton. The detailed mine plan has been focused on the first 30 year mine plan sufficient to support a 1,500,000 ton per year cement manufacturing facility. In addition, resource tonnage potential of easily mined limestone suitable for cement production within claims controlled by the Company is very large. The present planned production of 1,500,000 tons of cement per year could easily be doubled in the future.

The Company stated that based on the information obtained to date from the advanced stage of the feasibility study on the 1,500,000 ton per year cement manufacturing facility and the feasibility study on the slurry pipeline system it is confident the project will be a highly cost competitive cement manufacturing facility, favorably located and beneficial to the future economic development of Chile.

SAGC is a mineral exploration company with extensive gold properties in Chile and Peru. Its common shares are listed on The Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SAG.

For further information in Canada and the U.S., Stephen W. Houghton, President and CEO, William C. O’Donnell, EVP and CFO. Telephone: (212) 983-9300, Fax: (212) 983-9314, and visit our website at http://www.sagc.com. For further information in Santiago, Chile, David R.S. Thomson, EVP and Director of Exploration, or Mario Hernandez, EVP, Land Claims Administration. Telephone (56) 2 232-5578.