Mr. Andrew DeFrancesco of Tolima Gold reports

TOLIMA GOLD INC. STARTS OPERATIONS AT ITS "SAN PABLO" PROCESSING PLANT

Tolima Gold Inc. has commenced operations at the San Pablo gold processing plant located within the historical gold district of Remedios and Segovia, in Antioquia, Department of Colombia. The San Pablo processing plant is part of an industrial complex comprising a gold mine, general infrastructure, laboratories and now a fully refurbished processing plant with an initial capacity of 100 tons per day. Tolima Gold has also announced that it will continue with the upgrading program in order to take the San Pablo plant to a capacity of 300 tons per day without affecting its current plant and mine operation.

Furthermore, the Company has entered into a strategic partnership with Gran Colombia Gold Corp. (TSX:GCM) ("Gran Colombia") whereby Gran Colombia will provide ore to be processed in the San Pablo plant while the Company's mines are brought to commercial production. The strategic partnership has an initial term of 6 months and under it Gran Colombia will deliver ore at its own cost and the Company will process the ore at its own cost, with sales proceeds being split 70/30, respectively. This strategic partnership will allow the Company to operate the San Pablo plant to capacity from the start and to generate continuous cash flow to support its capital and exploration investment programs. The Company intends to simultaneously increase the processing capacity of the San Pablo plant to 300 tons per day while developing its current San Pablo and La Bartola mines to be able to feed the upgraded processing plant.

The San Pablo and La Bartola mines are two well-known underground mines with their main shafts distant 400 meters from each other. The San Pablo mine is in the development stage with new galleries being added to access the mineralized structures, which will include a new shaft and four additional levels. La Bartola mine has been abandoned for some time and the Company intends to sample and rehabilitate the mine, as well as initiate development of a tunnel between the San Pablo and Bartola veins. All these developments will add up to more than 3 km of new tunnels in 2012.

In addition, the Company will continue exploring its seven properties in the Remedios project in order to find further mine prospects within this strategic location.

About the processing plant:

The San Pablo processing plant was acquired with the Remedios properties in the last half of 2011. All of the stages of the plant were modified to improve its efficiency. The plant is practically new. It had had been run intermittently and required improvement in some areas in order to reach design capacity. Since its acquisition, crushing and milling stages were improved. The rock size entering the crushing stage was left at 10in and the out coming size was reduced to a maximum of 5in. This change in size improves the milling stage drastically. The primary and secondary mills were relocated, improving the overall flow of the material along the plant. New and more modern equipment was added to the floatation process adding efficiency to this crucial step. The capacity of this stage was doubled with the addition of two new floating cells. The Cyanide process had a complete maintenance completed. Furthermore, a new set of filters were added to the Merryl Crow. The Foundry was also modernized by adding a new, more efficient furnace. With these improvements, the plant will run at design capacity and will be ready for an increase in capacity.