TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - July 5, 2011) - Alturas Minerals Corp. (the "Company") (News - Market indicators)(BVLAC:ALT) announced today that it has initiated a first phase of drilling of its Chapi Chapi copper-gold porphyry/skarn property in southeastern Peru on June 30^th, 2011. The Company engaged the services of Ingetrol S.A.C. for the execution of its 5,000 meters drilling program.

The Company also announced that it had signed a new 2-year agreement with the Huaquirca community that gives Alturas access to community land for its planned exploration program and has obtained the permit to conduct its first phase drilling program from the Peruvian mining authority.

In January of 2011, the Company entered into a revised agreement with Minera IRL Limited ("IRL") pursuant to which the Company can earn an 80% interest in the adjacent Utupara and Chapi Chapi properties within the Huaquirca copper-gold district in southern Peru ("Huaquirca Joint Venture") by completing at least 15,000 meters of drilling on the Huaquirca Joint Venture and a scoping study on any potential discovery before December 31, 2012.

Miguel Cardozo, President and CEO of Alturas commented, "We are very pleased to start drilling at the Chapi Chapi porphyry/skarn project. The 5,000 meter drilling program will test high priority, bulk-tonnage, copper-gold targets defined by detailed geochemical and geophysical surveys conducted by the Company in previous field campaigns. Additional geophysical surveys, including ground magnetic and induced polarization are also ongoing in zones were the potential for additional drill targets has been identified".

About the Huaquirca copper-gold district

The 6,903 hectare Chapi Chapi project is situated in the department of Apurimac in southern Peru. The Chapi Chapi property block is immediately adjacent to Alturas' 5,276 hectare Utupara property. Together the two projects now comprise a larger joint venture area ("Huaquirca Joint Venture") of Alturas with Minera IRL Limited.

In Utupara, alteration and mineralization occur over +4.0 x 4.0 kilometers. Alteration is dominantly a potassic-style, kfeldspar-biotite-magnetite with widespread phyllic and propylitic alteration overprints
and bodies of fault-controlled skarns occurring along the eastern contact of the intrusive complex with the sedimentary rocks.

The Chapi Chapi property includes a large copper-gold-molybdenum skarn system (the +3 km long "Chapi Chapi Corridor") hosted by Cretaceous limestones cut by dioritic to monzonitic stocks. In addition, the property contains a large (1 km x 1 km) gold-in-soils geochemical anomaly ("Huarajo" anomaly) located within nearby fractured Cretaceous sandstones, which shows extensive alteration including quartz-iron oxide stockwork-veining and epithermal overprint.

The limestones in the Huaquirca District are part of the same unit that hosts large skarn deposits in the Apurimac-Cusco porphyry-skarn belt, such as the Tintaya and Las Bambas copper-gold skarn projects of Xstrata. The quartzite unit also hosts a significant copper oxide resource at the nearby Antilla project of Panoro Minerals, situated some 20 kilometers to the west. Los Chancas copper porphyry deposit (in feasibility stage) is hosted by a similar intrusive complex located 20 km north of the Huaquirca District, and the Trapiche copper porphyry exploration project of Buenaventura also occurs 15 km south of Alturas' property.

For maps and an extended summary of previous exploration results, refer to the Company's website www.alturasminerals.com/project-pdfs.html

About Alturas Minerals Corp.

Alturas is a Canadian corporation, and is the parent of Alturas Minerals S.A. ("Alturas Peru") and Alturas Minerals Chile Ltda ("Alturas Chile"). Alturas' exploration strategy is focused on the discovery of large epithermal gold mineralized deposits and copper-gold porphyry/skarn deposits in Peru and Chile.

Alturas Peru has been actively exploring various mineral projects in Peru since January 2004. Alturas' properties include four drill-ready mineral exploration projects located in central and southern Peru, which includes the Chapi Chapi-Utupara Copper-Gold Project, the Sombrero Copper-Gold Project, the Ccaccapaqui Gold-Silver Project and the Huajoto Gold-Silver-Zinc Project. In addition, Alturas Peru has interests in four other exploration projects in Peru. Alturas Chile has also an option to acquire 100% of the La Corina copper-gold porphyry property in northern Chile. A first phase of drilling of this property was completed in the second quarter of 2010 with encouraging results.

About Ingetrol S.A.C.

Ingetrol S.A.C. is a Chilean-Peruvian company with 20 years experience in manufacturing drill rigs and providing drilling services to the mining industry.

For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.alturasminerals.com.

Should you wish to receive Company news via email, please email contact@alturasminerals.com and specify "Alturas News" in the subject line.

Cautionary Language and Forward Looking Statements

This press release may contain "forward-looking statements", which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Investors are cautioned that such statements are not guarantees of future performance and results.  Risks and uncertainties about the Company's business are more fully discussed in the Company's disclosure documents filed from time to time with the Canadian securities authorities.