NEWS RELEASE

St. Elias Mines Ltd. Announces Exploration and Development Plans for Tesoro

Project in Peru

Vancouver, B.C. December 20, 2012 St. Elias Mines Ltd. (SLI - TSX:V) today announced

“After careful review, we have adopted a two-part strategy to advance our Tesoro project over 18 to 24 months,” said Lori McClenahan, President and CEO of St. Elias Mines. “In order to carry out the strategy we will need additional capital. We are focused on completing our financing and hope to do so during early 2013, if market conditions permit.”

One part of the Tesoro strategy involves exploration to explore for new gold-bearing material. St. Elias has established a number of attractive targets for a 3,000 metre to 5,000 metre diamond drilling campaign.

The other part of the strategy involves development focused on more than 20 waste rock dumps left behind by prior mining activity. St. Elias intends to sample and test the dumps and prepare a National Instrument 43-101 resource estimate. St. Elias proposes to follow up with a prefeasibility study to determine whether gold could be profitably recovered from the dumps, providing cash to support additional exploration.