Argonaut Gold Exceeds 2012 Guidance with Gold Production of 108,081 Ounces

Q4 Gold Production of 25,805 Ounces at El Castillo; 6,195 Ounces at La Colorada

Toronto, Ontario – (January 17, 2013) Argonaut Gold Inc. (“Argonaut Gold” or the “Company”; TSX: AR), announced today that the Company achieved record gold production of 32,000 ounces during the 4th quarter ended December 31, 2012. This included 25,805 ounces at its 100% owned El Castillo Mine (“El Castillo”) in Durango, Mexico and 6,195 ounces at its 100% owned La Colorada Mine (“La Colorada”) in Sonora, Mexico. All dollar amounts are in US dollars except as otherwise noted.

FOURTH QUARTER 2012 HIGHLIGHTS:

El Castillo

• Record production of 25,805 gold ounces (+31% improvement over Q4 2011)
• 39,329 gold ounces loaded on the pad (+30% improvement over Q4 2011)
• West Side Pad 8 construction moving forward; first cell to be loaded starting in Q2 of 2013

La Colorada

• Production of 6,195 gold ounces and 47,890 silver ounces
• 8,845 gold ounces and 815,219 silver ounces loaded on the pad
• Phase 2 pad construction is 65% complete
• Crushing circuit relocated and fully operational
• Final crushing circuit expansion scheduled for early in Q2 of 2013

Financial

• Year-end cash balance was $191 million as of December 31, 2012, of which C $115 million for warrant exercises was included
• Fourth Quarter sales of 29,500 ounces of gold and 70,910 ounces of silver

Full year 2012

• Total production of 108,081 ounces of gold (+50% over 2011)
• El Castillo 87,712 ounces (+22% over 2011)
• La Colorada 20,369 ounces

El Castillo In Pit Sulphide Mineralization

• Over 360,000 gold ounces have been added to El Castillo’s in-pit resources. The additional sulfide mineralization is divided into two categories including non-silicified sulphides and silicified sulphides; this provides 22.6 million tonnes at a grade of 0.504 g/t. The majority of the mineralization falls in the non-silicified category which has an average grade of 0.47g/t with recoveries ranging from 25% to over 50%. The smaller silicified zone of mineralization is mainly confined to a higher grade breccia pipe averaging 0.80 g/t. yielding recoveries of 11% to 28%.
• Results encompass approximately 5,000 meters of core drilling for 32 holes completed in multiple programs over the last three years. All metallurgical testing was completed by Kappes, Cassidy & Associates (“KCA”) in Reno, Nevada.