ST BARBARA LIMITED — Capital/Financing Update 2004

Mar 21, 2004

MEDIA RELEASE

FRIDAY, 19 MARCH 2004

HIGH-GRADE GOLD DISCOVERY AT CUE GOLDFIELD PROJECT

NEW HIGH-GRADE ZONE IDENTIFIED AT 'LIGHT OF ASIA' PROSPECT

Cougar Metals NL (ASX code: CGM) today announced the discovery of a high-grade zone of gold mineralisation at its Cue Goldfield Project in Western Australia, with outstanding drilling results returned from the 'Light of Asia' Prospect adjacent to historic gold mines located on JV ground within the Cue Goldfield

Cougar Metals is earning an 80% interest in the JV from Saint Barbara Mines NL.

'Light of Asia' is a second separate and discrete zone of high-grade gold mineralisation located approximately 2 kilometres from the previously identified Cue One North zone of mineralisation.

Best results from RC drilling at the prospect included $4 \text{ m} \ @$ 15.6 g/t from 56 metres (including 1 m @ 48.4 g/t), 2 m @ 10.8 g/t from 65 metres (including 1 metre at 20.3 g/t), 1 m @ 7.1 g/t from 64 metres, $3 \text{ m} \ @ \ 12.6 \text{ g/t}$ from 61 metres (including 1 metre at 35 g/t), 12 m $\ @ \ 6.8 \text{ g/t}$ from 64 metres and $4 \text{ m} \ @$ 6.3 g/t from 76 metres.

The Light of Asia Prospect is an extension of the historic Light of Asia - Queen of the May mines, where historical production yielded a total of 60,572 ounces of gold from 78,318 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 24g/t.

Cougar's Managing Director, Mr Randal Swick, said the identification of mineralisation at the prospect added further weight to the Company's belief that the Cue Goldfield Project had the potential to host 500,000 ounces of gold in multiple zones of high-grade mineralisation.

"The Murchison Province in Western Australia, home of the Cue Goldfield Project, produced in excess of 7 million ounces of gold during the last 100 years," Mr Swick said.

"This province hosted the rich Great Fingal and Golden Crown deposits located approximately 5km southwest of Cue, which in total produced approximately 1.3 million ounces of gold. The Cue Goldfield itself contains in excess of 50 historical workings, many of which were small high-grade zones located near to surface, and yielded over 240,000 ounces of gold at grades over 20 g/t.

"Despite these facts, the Cue Goldfield has remained largely unexplored since the $2^nd$ World War."

Cougar's landholding at Cue has been accumulated over a 7-year period. The Company is now undertaking a wide-scale systematic exploration program, for the first time in this field, using modern exploration techniques. Cougar expects to identify numerous additional zones of high-grade gold mineralisation either missed or not fully exploited by the early explorers.

The initial program is targeting areas alongside historic workings and has been successful in identifying the Cue One North and Light of Asia zones.

In addition to the expected zones of high-grade gold mineralisation, the Company has also developed a conceptual model that contends that the source of the near-surface gold in the area is a large mineralised zone located at depth, referred to as the Cue Deeps target. The Company will continue to gather data from its surface programs before testing the Cue Deeps target, with such testing expected to commence within the next 12 months.

The drilling at the Light of Asia Prospect has delineated a gold bearing quartz vein over at least 300 metres of strike and 100 metres down dip. The complete table of intersections from RC drilling at the Light of Asia Prospect ( $Au > 1g/t$ ) is as follows:

Hole	TD Hole	Drill Intercept	Depth to top
CJRC391	69m	1m @ 1.9g/t	53m
	and	2m @ 1.7g/t	56m
CJRC393	69m	4m @ 15.6g/t	56m
	incl	1m @ 48.4g/t	56m
CJRC394	80m	1m @ 1.8g/t	54m
CJRC395	66m	1m @ 6.2g/t	53m
CJRC396	76m	1m @ 7.1g/t	64m
CJRC397	63m	Im @ 1.1g/t	49m
CJRC398	76m	$2m \ @ \ 4.0$ g/t	61m
CJRC399	84m	2m @ 10.8g/t	65m
	incl	1m @ 20.3g/t	66m
CJRC400	81m	$Im @ 3.2$ g/t	62m
CJRC401	90m	3m @ 12.6g/t	61m
	incl	1m @ 35.0g/t	61 m
CJRC402	102m	12m @ 6.8g/t	64m
	and	4m @ 6.3g/t	76m
	and	20m @ 1.4g/t	80m
CJRC405	87 m	3m @ 2.6g/t	58m
CJRC406	68m	1m @ 1.0g/t	60m

The strongly mineralised quartz vein system remains open, both to the north and down dip, providing the Company with confidence that further mineralisation may be identified and the strike of the gold bearing quartz vein lengthened. Further step-out drilling and infill drilling is expected in the next phase of the evaluation of this system. Full details of results are further explained in today's ASX announcement.

- ENDS -

Released by: Jan Hope / Nicholas Read Jan Hope & Partners Telephone: (+61-8) 9388-1474

On behalf of: Mr Randal Swick Managing Director Cougar Metals NL Telephone: (+61-8) 9277 7908 Email: Randai.Swick@Cougarmetals.com.au