VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Oct. 22, 2013) - ASHBURTON VENTURES INC. (News - Market indicators) (FRANKFURT:ARB) ("Ashburton" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Denali Resources Ltd. ("Denali"; a private British Columbia company) to acquire the Donjek-Arch claim group, located in the Yukon, 260 kilometers west of Whitehorse. The claims are adjacent to and east of the Prophecy Platinum Wellgreen Deposit, which has an Indicated Resource of 14.4 Mt at 0.68% Ni, 0.62% Cu, and 2.23 g/t Pt+Pd+Au grade, and an Inferred Resource of 446.6 Mt at 0.31% Ni, 0.25% Cu, and 0.87 g/t Pt+Pd+Au grade at a 0.22% NiEq cut-off (see Prophecy Platinum news release, June 18, 2012). For a 100% stake in the project, Ashburton will issue seven million common shares of the Company to Denali over three years. 

President and CEO Michael England states, "The Donjek-Arch claims are a significant acquisition that will allow Ashburton to apply its technical expertise to an emerging platinum group element district. The Company is also very excited to have access to Denali's technical team, who have been exploring in the Kluane area, Yukon for over 40 years and have an in-depth understanding of the geological potential and the social aspects of the region. We are looking forward to combining our efforts to advance the Donjek-Arch claims, especially given their strategic proximity to the Wellgreen Ni-Cu-PGM project."

About the Donjek-Arch Project:

The Donjek-Arch Project consists of 325 contiguous claims covering 6,770 hectares, and is located 40 kilometers (km) northwest of Burwash Landing and only 15km south of the Alaska Highway along the Donjek River. The project is in the Kluane Ultramafic Belt, a 600km-long belt of rocks characterized by mafic to ultramafic Triassic-aged sills intruded into Carboniferous to Triassic sedimentary and volcanic rocks. The Donjek claims are dominantly to the east, and Arch claims are dominantly to the west of the Donjek River.

The Donjek claims were first staked on strongly anomalous aeromagnetic highs. In 2004, inversions of Geological Survey of Canada magnetic data determined that these anomalies are consistent with what would be expected from ultramafic rocks. Additional smaller magnetic highs are interpreted to be potentially a fault-bounded slice of ultramafic rock. A historic ground VLF-EM survey over the one of magnetic highs located an open-ended northwest trending conductor. Airborne geophysics completed in 1996 identified a well-defined resistivity low associated with a strong magnetic high and several moderately broad conductors. Geological mapping and sampling in 2001 identified pyritic mafic and ultramafic rocks, including peridotite and gabbro, underlying the claims. Five rock samples returned values as high as 424 ppm Cu; 4 ppb Pt, 247 ppm Cr, 681 ppm Ni and 18 ppb Au. 

The Arch claims cover a nickel-copper-PGE showing, hosted by Triassic mafic to ultramafic sills of the Kluane Suite, intruding the Carboniferous Station Creek Formation. Also on the Arch claims is a showing with interstitial and disseminated pyrite, chalcopyrite±pentlandite in two 15m wide gabbroic bodies with an adjacent stockwork zones into older volcanic rocks that reported historic values of 0.20% Ni and 0.55% Cu with 0.15 g/t Au. A second showing one kilometer further to the south has disseminated pyrite, magnetite and pyrrhotite hosted in altered carbonate adjacent to a variably serpentinized peridotite sill, which returned 0.11 g/t Pt, 0.11 g/t Pd, 0.16% Ni, 0.07% Cu and 0.14 g/t Au over two meters. Additional historic magnetic and VLF anomalies are present on the property that require follow-up prospecting and sampling (from Yukon Geological Survey Minfile Nos. 115G-026, -033, and -088, Assessment Report Nos. 094396, 093662, 017513, 092578, 092575, 092744, 094253, 094250, 094466, 094217, 017459).

An aggressive 2013 exploration program that included both ground geophysics and geochemical sampling campaigns was recently completed by Denali. Details of the program and the resulting data will be released in the coming weeks, once all results have been received and interpreted. 

The technical contents of this release were approved by Dr. Tom E. McCandless, P. Geo., a director of Ashburton and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. The property has not been the subject of a National Instrument 43-101 report, and Dr. McCandless has not verified the technical data disclosed in this release.

The Company also announces the resignation of Lorne McCarthy as a Director of Ashburton Ventures and would like to thank Mr. McCarthy for his contributions and wish him well in his future endeavours.

Ashburton Ventures is a junior exploration company actively seeking mineral and energy opportunities for the benefit of all its stakeholders.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Michael England, President

Forward-Looking Statement:

Some of the statements in this news release contain forward-looking information that involves inherent risk and uncertainty affecting the business of Ashburton Ventures Inc. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.