Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Vancouver, B.C.: Bell Copper Corporation ("Bell Copper" or the "Company") (TSX-V Symbol: BCU) announces that the Company has amended its option agreement (the "Amended Option Agreement") with Silver Nickel Mining Company ("Silver Nickel") covering two patented claims and seventeen unpatented claims within the Company's Sombrero Butte project in the Copper Creek District in Pinal County, Arizona (the "Property").

Under the Amended Option Agreement, Bell Copper will continue to have the right to earn a 100% interest in the Property by completing cash payments according to the following schedule:

• $60,000 in year one ($5,000 per month for 12 months);
• $60,000 in January 2010;
• $60,000 in January 2011;
• $60,000 in January 2012;
• $60,000 in January 2013; and
• $600,000 in January 2014.

The Amended Option Agreement eliminates the 2% NSR royalty in favour of Silver Nickel under the original option agreement. The Amended Option Agreement is subject to approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Sombrero Butte Project

At Sombrero Butte, Bell has purchased, optioned and staked a large contiguous land position in the southern region of the Copper Creek District. This land package represents the first consolidation of these claims since the area was mined back in 1920.

The Sombrero Butte property contains at least two main clusters of breccia pipes believed to be associated with one or more underlying porphyry copper systems. The breccia pipes in the northern cluster represent relatively small but high-grade copper deposits that are of greatest interest because of their suspected link to an underlying porphyry copper system. At least twenty distinct breccia pipes had been recognized by Bell Copper in the Sombrero Butte area prior to 2008, and 34 Diamond drillholes were completed to test mineralization within the pipes and any shallow subjacent porphyry system.

Recent fieldwork has resulted in the discovery of 8 additional breccia pipes in a separate cluster located three kilometers further south. These 8 pipes constitute a distinct cluster covering an area of 1 kilometer by 1.6 kilometers. The newly discovered breccias share a common style of hydrothermal alteration consisting of relatively coarse grained (>100 microns), translucent, blue-green dickite (Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄) filling open spaces between angular breccia clasts. Wallrock surrounding the breccia pipes is in most places unaltered, or cut by sheeted tourmaline-quartz veinlets. The striking similarity of the alteration in these widely separated breccia pipes suggests that they shared a common hydrothermal reservoir, like a large porphyry copper system in the subsurface.

Dickite is an alumino-silicate clay that forms at temperatures of 150�-270�C under very acidic conditions. Primary potassium feldspar and secondary muscovite (sericite) in the breccias have been completely replaced by dickite, necessary mineralogical reactions to qualify as advanced argillic alteration. Positive identification of the dickite was made using a Pima infrared spectrometer as well as a microRaman spectrometer at the University of Arizona's RRUFF laboratory.

Hydrothermal alteration in the previously recognized breccia cluster 3 kilometers to the north ranges from chlorite-calcite-specular hematite-quartz-amethyst-adularia-rhodochrosite, to tourmaline-biotite-chlorite, to chlorite-sericite-hematite. Primary sulfide mineralization in the northern breccia cluster includes bornite-chalcopyrite and pyrite variably overprinted by steely supergene chalcocite. The presence of abundant dickite and gossanous iron oxides including jarosite within the southern breccia cluster adds a new and larger dimension to the footprint of this system.

X-ray fluoresecence analyses of iron oxide minerals in the dickite-bearing breccias show anomalous copper, molybdenum, and arsenic concentrations. Multiple young porphyry dikes up to several hundred meters long cut the host rocks surrounding the breccia pipes, and the porphyries are present as angular, rotated clasts within some of the breccias. Abundant copper oxide minerals, including the relatively rare mineral vesignieite (BaCu₃(VO₄)₂(OH)₂) are present at the surface in two widely separated breccia bodies that do not appear to carry dickite. Tourmaline is locally very abundant outside the breccia pipes as vein fillings and vein envelopes in sheeted, steeply dipping vein sets that do not seem closely linked to the dickite bearing breccias.

The drill Table below outlines all drill holes to date at Sombrero and any significant copper intercepts.