Petaquilla

Petaquilla completed a large-column, run-of-mine test project, confirming its initial gold recovery estimates of approximately 65 percent

Petaquilla – Molejon Project

Another SmallCap gold company is making a run today after announcing production highlights from its Panama gold mine. Shares of Petaquilla Minerals (OTC:PTQMF) were trading up more than 20 percent at $0.55 per share on heavy volume of over 1 million shares. Petaquilla only averages about 120,000 shares traded per day and has a market cap of around $70 million.

Many SmallCap companies of late have benefited from the “gold rush” with investors scrambling to find alternate channels to allocate their capital. Gold has hit record price levels week after week and the trickle-down effect has been evident with small companies like Petaquilla Minerals getting high volume days like today quite often.

In a press release, Petaquilla Minerals announces its September production averaged 2,444tpd, at an average head grade of 3.03g/t, representing a monthly throughput of 7,143 ounces. During the last week of September, production averaged 2,734tpd. This performance represents an improvement of approximately 56.2 percent over the monthly average of Q1 2011 (June-August) and is the result of significant changes recently implemented in maintenance and operating procedures following the re-occurrence of critical equipment failures during the precedent quarter. As a result, equipment availability during September averaged 93 percent. These performance improvements are expected to have a significantly favourable impact on production costs per ounce for the month of September and Q2 2011.

Since January 2010, the Company mined 846,104 tons of ore for a total of 48,094 ounces, including low grades for stock piles destined for a future heap leach operation. In this regard, Petaquilla completed a large-column, run-of-mine test project, confirming its initial gold recovery estimates of approximately 65 percent. Just for reference, current gold prices are $1,345 per ounce, up $6.02 per ounce on the day.

On or prior to October 15th, the Company will be filing its quarterly financial statements and Management Discussion & Analysis with complete details of its quarterly performance.

Petaquilla Minerals is a gold producer operating its gold processing plant at its 100 percent owned Molejon Gold Project in Panama. Anticipated throughput for the project during the first year of commercial production is estimated to be 2200 tons per day. Commercial production commenced January 8, 2010. The Molejon mine site is located in the south central area of the Company’s 100 percent owned 842 square kilometre concession lands, a region known historically for gold content.

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