TABJ - June 2 - Vancouver's New Gold Inc. and Richfield Ventures Corp. yesterday announced that New Gold has closed the acquisition of Richfield Ventures. In completing the acquisition, New Gold has issued about 49 million New Gold shares to former Richfield shareholders.

“We are delighted with the acquisition of Richfield's Blackwater Project,” Randall Oliphant, Executive Chairman, New Gold Inc., said in a statement. “Blackwater fits perfectly into New Gold’s growth pipeline as it adds a multi-million ounce gold resource with significant exploration potential to our portfolio of assets. We look forward to drilling the property aggressively to increase its already significant gold resource.”

The Blackwater Project is in central British Columbia, where New Gold already has an established presence through the ongoing development of its New Afton Project, which remains on-budget and on-time for a mid-2012 production start.

The initial mineral resource estimate for the Blackwater Project was announced by Richfield on March 2, with New Gold’s share of the resource including 1.8 million ounces of indicated gold resources and an additional 2 million ounces of inferred gold resources.

New Gold looks forward to building on this initial resource as the deposit remains open in all directions and at depth. Drill results show strong continuity of mineralization on both the southern and northern portions of the deposit. With four drills currently active at site, a fifth drill is scheduled to arrive in June, while New Gold has also commenced work to expand the project’s existing infrastructure to support as many as 10 drills by the end of 2011.