VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - July 16, 2009) - Timmins Gold Corp. (TSX VENTURE:TMM) announces that it has begun production testing activities at its San Francisco gold project in Mexico. The San Francisco gold project is a past producing open pit mine and heap leaching operation. All plant and equipment necessary for operations is now in place including crushing, leaching and extraction facilities designed to produce gold and silver dore. The San Francisco mine will commence full production after satisfactory completion of the current testing.

Full production is planned for September 2009 with the first gold pour scheduled by December of 2009. The San Francisco project is expected to produce approximately 80,000 ounces of gold per year, at an average cash cost of USD$412 an ounce during its five year mine life, based on currently defined reserves. Management is of the view that previous exploration has demonstrated excellent potential to expand the resources and reserves at San Francisco beyond the resources currently outlined for the project and has already identified drill targets.

Construction of the brand new USD$12 million secondary and tertiary crushing system began in November of 2008 under contract with Sandvik and is now complete. At the same time the ground leveling and preparation for the heap leach pads was initiated with the first 8 hectares now complete. In addition the existing primary crusher was fully refurbished by Metso Minerals and has been installed.

Production testing is primarily focused on the crushing system and conveyors. Testing is targeted at reaching a sustained processing capacity of 550 metric tonnes per hour of ore feed to the heap leach pads at a particle size of 100% minus 1/2 inch. For this test, the crushing circuit will be loaded with material mined from the open pit for 8 hours per day during a continuous 30 day period. The crushing circuit will be operated until design parameters are reached. The new crushing system was designed to optimize gold recoveries at the minimum operating cost for the ore at San Francisco. Material mined for the test, totaling approximately 200,000 metric tonnes, is part of the current mine plan and the crushed material will be placed on the heap leach pads.

The San Francisco project is located in the north central portion of the State of Sonora in Mexico, which borders the US state of Arizona, and is approximately 150 km north of the city of Hermosillo, the capital city of Sonora. The project is located approximately 2 km west of Mexican State Highway 15 (the Pan American Highway). The project is fully permitted and receives electrical power from the local grid.

The San Francisco mine will commence full production after satisfactory completion of testing. Full production is planned for September 2009 with the first gold pour scheduled by December of 2009.