SilverCrest Mines Inc. (TSX VENTURE:SVL) (NYSE MKT:SVLC) announces the grant of stock options to directors, officers, employees and consultants to purchase an aggregate of 2,735,000 common shares of the Company at an exercise price of $1.68 per share for a term of 5 years. One quarter of these options vest on the date of grant and a further one-quarter will vest every six months thereafter.

SilverCrest Mines Inc. is a Canadian precious metals producer headquartered in Vancouver, BC. SilverCrest’s flagship property is the 100%-owned Santa Elena Mine, located 150 km northeast of Hermosillo, near Banamichi in the State of Sonora, Mexico. The mine is a high-grade, epithermal silver and gold producer, with an estimated life of mine cash cost of US$8 per ounce of silver equivalent (55:1 Ag:Au) for the open pit heap leach. SilverCrest anticipates that the 2,500 tonnes per day open pit heap leach facility at the Santa Elena mine should recover approximately 725,000 ounces of silver and 30,000 ounces of gold in 2013. Major expansion and construction of a 3,000 tonnes per day conventional mill facility is underway to significantly increase metals production at the Santa Elena Mine (open pit and underground) by 2014. Exploration programs continue to make new discoveries at Santa Elena and also have rapidly advanced the definition of a large polymetallic deposit at the La Joya property in Durango State with stated resources nearing 200 million ounces of Ag equivalent.