Poised to become a mid-tier gold producer

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October 13, 2011, Vancouver, BC – Great Basin Gold Ltd, (“Great Basin” or the “Company”), (TSX: GBG; NYSE Amex: GBG; JSE: GBG) announces an updated mineral resource estimate for its Burnstone Gold Mine in the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa.

The updated mineral resource estimate, inclusive of all drilling and underground evaluation up to June 30, 2011, is tabulated below at a range of cutoffs. At a cutoff of 300 cmg/t, the total Measured and Indicated Resources contain approximately12.6 million ounces of gold, and the Inferred Resources contain approximately 10.1 million ounces of gold.

Notes to tables:

1. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.
2. Metallurgical recoveries are not applied to resource values.

At a 300 cmg/t cut-off, the current update reflects a slight increase in tonnage (3%) and a slight drop in grade (-6%) when compared to the August 2010 estimate (see Great Basin News Release dated February 2, 2011 and August 23, 2010).

The Burnstone Mine has progressed from a development project to the gold production stage, and is now in a build-up phase with steady state production expected by 2013. The above mineral resources, which include the mine’s mineral reserves, have been depleted by production to June 30, 2011 and are stated as of that date.

The mineral resource classification method applied in this update is in line with that utilized in the August 2010 estimate, with a minimum of six informing samples used for estimates in the Measured category, a minimum of three informing samples used for Indicated, and two informing samples used for Inferred. The total number of informing Kimberley Reef intersections utilized for the estimate is 2050, a substantial increase from the 610 intersections used in the 2010 estimate. For the 2011 estimate, these include 514 from surface boreholes (339 in 2010), 42 from underground boreholes (35 in 2010), and 1494 from underground channel composite samples (362 in 2010). In addition, a total of 819 historic deflections from surface boreholes have been used, where appropriate, for assay and sedimentological confirmation. Geozones developed from deposit modeling in the area of interest were updated as part of the basis for the estimation, but remain very similar to those used in the August 2010 resource update. These zones are delineated by a combination of variable geological parameters such as channel width, gold grade (g/t) and gold accumulation (cmg/t), footwall lithology, and sedimentary facies.

Variography, generated from the current geostatistical analyses for the estimates, is in line with previous observations. The continued underground exposure of Kimberley Reef from mine development is providing a basis for detailed evaluation data (channel samples) and structural mapping. All told, the results continue to demonstrate higher confidence in the estimated total Measured and Indicated resources.

President and CEO Ferdi Dippenaar commented: “Over the past few months, the Burnstone Mine has seen a steady ramp up in production dependent on the rate of reef development currently achieved. Accordingly, the evaluation of the Kimberley Reef ore body, which previously mainly relied upon surface drilling, now has increased information at hand consisting of detailed underground channel sampling, underground delineation and cover drilling as well as infill evaluation drilling from surface. The concurrent sampling of approximately 11,400 meters of underground on-reef development has contributed to an improved understanding of the ore body.  This is valuable information that will assist in achieving the planned increased rate of mining for the remainder of 2011 and 2012.”

The Burnstone goldfield is defined by an 18 kilometer long, northwesterly trending mineralized corridor hosting the Kimberley Reef, one of four main gold-bearing units in the Witwatersrand Basin. At Burnstone, the central portion of the gold corridor has been uplifted by two northwesterly trending sub-parallel faults and, as a result, a significant portion of the deposit areas along the trend occur at relatively shallow depths of 200-750 meters below surface. The mineral resource estimation was done using geostatistical methods by Freddie de Bruin, Pr.Sci.Nat. of Deswiks Mining Consultants (Pty) Ltd., an Independent Qualified Person as defined by Canadian Securities Regulations in National Instrument 43-101. The primary analytical facility for the Burnstone Project from 2003-2005 has been SGS Lakefield Research Africa (Pty) Limited and subsequently (2006-2011), ALS Chemex has been the primary laboratory. Both facilities are located in Johannesburg, South Africa. Phil Bentley, Pr.Sci.Nat. VP: Geology and Exploration for Great Basin Gold Ltd., a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian Securities Regulations in National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the information within this news release.

For additional details on Great Basin and its gold properties, please visit the Company’s website at www.grtbasin.com or contact Investor Services:

No regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained in this news release.

Cautionary and Forward Looking Statement Information

This document contains “forward-looking statements” that were based on Great Basin Gold’s expectations, estimates and projections as of the dates as of which those statements were made. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “outlook”, “anticipate”, “project”, “target”, “believe”, “estimate”, “expect”, “intend”, “should” and similar expressions.

Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company’s actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These include but are not limited to:

• uncertainties and costs related to the Company’s exploration and development activities, such as those associated with determining whether mineral resources or reserves exist on a property;
• uncertainties related to feasibility studies that provide estimates of expected or anticipated costs, expenditures and economic returns from a mining project; uncertainties related to expected production rates, timing of production and the cash and total costs of production and milling;
• uncertainties related to the ability to obtain necessary licenses, permits, electricity, surface rights and title for development projects; operating and technical difficulties in connection with mining development activities;
• uncertainties related to the accuracy of our mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates and our estimates of future production and future cash and total costs of production, and the geotechnical or hydrogeological nature of ore deposits, and diminishing quantities or grades of mineral reserves;
• uncertainties related to unexpected judicial or regulatory proceedings;
• changes in, and the effects of, the laws, regulations and government policies affecting our mining operations, particularly laws, regulations and policies relating to
  • mine expansions, environmental protection and associated compliance costs arising from exploration, mine development, mine operations and mine closures;
  • expected effective future tax rates in jurisdictions in which our operations are located;
  • the protection of the health and safety of mine workers; and
  • mineral rights ownership in countries where our mineral deposits are located, including the effect of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (South Africa);
• changes in general economic conditions, the financial markets and in the demand and market price for gold, silver and other minerals and commodities, such as diesel fuel, coal, petroleum coke, steel, concrete, electricity and other forms of energy, mining equipment, and fluctuations in exchange rates, particularly with respect to the value of the U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar and South African rand;
• unusual or unexpected formation, cave-ins, flooding, pressures, and precious metals losses (and the risk of inadequate insurance or inability to obtain insurance to cover these risks);
• changes in accounting policies and methods we use to report our financial condition, including uncertainties associated with critical accounting assumptions and estimates;
• environmental issues and liabilities associated with mining including processing and stock piling ore;
• geopolitical uncertainty and political and economic instability in countries which we operate; and
• labour strikes, work stoppages, or other interruptions to, or difficulties in, the employment of labour in markets in which we operate mines, or environmental hazards, industrial accidents or other events or occurrences, including third party interference that interrupt the production of minerals in our mines.

For further information on Great Basin, investors should review the Company’s annual Form 40-F filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission www.sec.com and home jurisdiction filings that are available at www.sedar.com.