NEWS RELEASE

INTERNATIONAL MINERALS CORPORATION

December 2, 2003

Trading: Toronto: "IMZ", Switzerland: "IMZ", Frankfurt: "IMZ.F"

INTERNATIONAL MINERALS STARTS FEASIBILITY STUDY DRILL PROGRAM
ON HIGH-GRADE ZONE AT RIO BLANCO GOLD-SILVER PROPERTY, ECUADOR

International Minerals Corporation (“IMC”) has commenced a core-drilling program totaling approximately 9,000m in 48 drill holes on the high-grade Alejandra Zone within IMC’s Rio Blanco epithermal gold-silver deposit located in southern Ecuador.

This drill program, together with approximately 120m of underground exploration (adits/tunnels), is scheduled to be completed within 6 months and forms an integral part of an intended full feasibility study (including permitting) by IMC on the Alejandra Zone with a targeted completion date of mid-2005 under the supervision of independent mining, engineering and metallurgical consultant(s) yet to be appointed. Drilling and underground assay results from the new programs will be released as they become available following detailed internal quality control check sampling procedures.

The drilling and underground exploration programs are designed to further define, on relatively close-spaced centers (approximately 25-30m), the high-grade gold-silver mineralization within the Alejandra Vein-Breccia Structure, where IMC’s internally-calculated diluted inferred mineral resource estimate reported approximately 744,000 tonnes with an average grade of 18.3 g/t gold and 146 g/t silver, containing 438,000 gold ounces and 3.5 million silver ounces. This high-grade zone (“shoot”) forms part of the overall inferred resource estimated by IMC to date at Rio Blanco of 881,000 ounces of gold and 6.7 million ounces of silver contained within 5 million tonnes of material at 5.5 g/t gold and 42 g/t silver. IMC management considers that excellent potential exists for extensions to the known zones of mineralization together with additional high-grade shoots.

An independent “scoping study” (or preliminary assessment) of the economic viability of establishing a 400 tonne-per-day initially open-pit and subsequently underground mining operation on the Alejandra Vein-Breccia Structure, using conventional milling and direct cyanidation recovery methods, was completed in September 2003 by Buenaventura Ingenieros SA (“BISA”) of Lima, Peru (see News Release dated October 14, 2003) and showed a project with overall robust economics.

Using a base-case gold price of US$350 per ounce and a silver price of $5 per ounce, the total operating cost per tonne is estimated at US$63, with a cash operating cost of $89 per ounce gold (using silver as a credit) and a total cash cost including capital of US$177 per ounce gold (using silver as a credit). The pre-tax/royalty internal rate of return (IRR) is estimated by BISA at 54%, life-of-mine (6 years) cash flow at US$69 million and a Net Present Value (NPV) at a 10% discount rate of US$36 million. Initial capital costs (excluding working capital) were estimated by BISA at US$19.5 million using all new equipment, with an initial capital payback period of 1.7 years from start-up. Based on BISA’s timeline, start-up of operations would be in the first quarter of 2006.

It should be noted that the scoping study described above is categorized as a preliminary assessment under the Canadian Securities Administrators National Instrument 43-101 and is preliminary in nature because it includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and therefore there is no certainty that the results of the scoping studies will be realized in the future.

The Alejandra North Vein-Breccia Structure is only one of several high-grade gold and silver- bearing structures that are present within IMC’s extensive land position on the Rio Blanco property. Management believes that further exploration work on these other structures could yield additional sources of high-grade mineralization which might then be incorporated in any future operations at Rio Blanco.

Drilling is being carried out by Kluane International Drilling Inc., of Vancouver, Canada and by Paragon Drilling of Cuenca, Ecuador, with both companies under the supervision of an experienced Canadian drilling supervisor. Sample preparation and analytical work will be carried out at the ALS Chemex laboratory in Quito, Ecuador and Vancouver, Canada respectively, using standard industry practices and conventional fire assay methods for gold and silver. For quality control purposes, analytical standards with known metal values will be included with IMC’s samples. Duplicate analyses for selected samples will be carried out by Acme Geochemical Inc. in Vancouver, Canada. The overall exploration program at Rio Blanco falls under the supervision of IMC’s Exploration Manager, John Sutcliffe, as IMC’s designated “qualified person”.

Funding for the drilling and underground exploration program is provided by IMC’s existing working capital but completion of the full feasibility study will require additional equity financing.

IMC has filed its September 30, 2003 interim financial statements on SEDAR. Highlights of the these financials for the first quarter of IMC’s 2004 fiscal year are show below:

·    The consolidated loss for the current three-month period was $169,007 or $ Nil per share.  This compares to a loss of $269,340 or $Nil per share for the same period in 2002. 

·    Capitalized resource property expenditures for the current three-month period increased slightly to $894,649 as compared to expenditures of $887,717 for the same period last year.

·    Cash and cash-equivalents decreased by $794,764 from $2,946,645 at June 30, 2003 to $2,151,881 as of September 30, 2003 due principally to increased exploration and/or drilling expenditures at IMC’s Pallancata and Rio Blanco projects.  The cash decrease in the current quarter of $794,764 compares to a decrease of $916,554 for the same period in 2002.

·    Working capital at the end of the current quarter decreased by $1,021,912 from $3,126,895 at year-end June 30, 2003 to $2,104,983 as of September 30, 2003.

Stephen J. Kay, President and CEO

The Toronto, Swiss and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges neither approve nor disapprove the information contained in this News Release.

For additional information, contact Investor Relations at Tel: (480) 483-9932 or Fax: (480) 483-9926.

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