Source: Ivanhoe Mines    Date: May 13, 2010

A new, independent Integrated Development Plan confirms that the Oyu Tolgoi project has the mineral resources to become one of the world's top three copper-gold producers and an industry model of responsible, environmentally-sound mineral development, Ivanhoe Mines Executive Chairman Robert Friedland and President and Chief Executive Officer John Macken have said.

The new plan is a comprehensive update of the original 2005 plan and supports Ivanhoe Mines' commitment to advance Oyu Tolgoi into full construction, with production of copper and gold expected to begin in 2013. The development blueprint contains the first published declaration of underground reserves for the planned Hugo Dummett block-cave mine. It also presents the results of extensive studies of two complementary development scenarios:

1. A Reserve Case, based only on proven & probable mineral reserves established to this point in time, which would sustain mining for a projected 27 years.

2. A Life-of-Mine Sensitivity Case, which adds to the Reserve Case a large base of resources identified through exploration to date but currently classified only to the level of inferred resources. These are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would allow them to be categorized as mineral reserves. The new plan estimates that the Life-of-Mine Sensitivity Case would sustain mining at Oyu Tolgoi for a projected 59 years. In both cases, the average production at Oyu Tolgoi over the first ten years would exceed 544,000 tons of copper and 650,000 ounces of gold.

The plan, prepared independently of Rio Tinto and the joint Ivanhoe Mines-Rio Tinto Oyu Tolgoi Technical Committee, recommends that Oyu Tolgoi LLC, the Mongolian company that is developing and will operate the mining complex, conduct a comprehensive review to establish a baseline for the project with a goal of improving or optimizing value.

Mr. Macken said, “The plan is further confirmation that Oyu Tolgoi will positively and significantly contribute to Mongolia's economic growth and social development for generations to come." Mr. Friedland added, "Ivanhoe Mines believes that Oyu Tolgoi will stand tall in the pantheon of the world's greatest mines."