VMS Vortex Metals Inc

VMS Ventures Inc. (TSX VENTURE: VMS) (the "Company") is pleased to announce its exploration plans for the coming year, through the winter drilling season ending in March, 2010.

VMS Ventures' property portfolio in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake VMS belt is extensive and covers a range of exploration projects at various stages of development. The Company's holdings cover an area totaling approximately 400 square kilometers (or 100,000 acres). VMS is well financed, with over $13,000,000 in its treasury.

President, John Roozendaal states: "The ongoing challenge for our geological team is to plan and execute a multi-layered program that moves each of our 12 projects forward toward well defined drill targets in a comprehensive and cost effective fashion. Our exploration team met in Winnipeg last month to review and update our property priorities and finalize plans for the 2009 summer season. We also envisioned exploration and drill programs through next winter's drilling season and beyond. This release is designed to begin the process of informing our shareholders, and the investment community, of our exploration methodology and the specific, updated exploration plans for six priority projects outside of our Reed Lake discovery."

Exploration methodology

VMS employs a structured and systematic exploration approach to each of its properties from acquisition through to drilling. Following acquisition, a series of activities including the compilation and analysis of historical work, VTEM airborne geophysical surveying, and the identification of anomalies for reconnaissance geochemical sampling to test for an associated metal anomaly is undertaken. Secondary steps may include a more detailed geochemical survey grid over the object area and selected ground geophysical survey(s) taken to more precisely define the targets for drill testing. This approach enables the Company's geologists to identify 'exploration objects' for detailed re-evaluation before drilling.

Airborne Geophysics

In 2007 and 2008, the Company commissioned extensive, airborne geophysical surveys using the state of the art Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic (VTEM) system. The Company invested approximately $3 million dollars in VTEM and flew approximately 90% of the total VMS property package in Manitoba. This investment has returned several thousand prospective anomalies to be followed up over the next 3 years. This exploration tool is uniquely suited to detection of conductive metallic bodies beneath cover rock and overburden. This includes a large dolomite covered portion of the Flin Flon-Snow Lake VMS belt. Previous explorers worked with survey equipment that had trouble penetrating this dolomite cover and, therefore, few deposits have been discovered in the large, southern portion of the mineral belt.

Dr. George Gale, VP Exploration states: "VTEM technology has allowed us to see through the thick dolomite and produce many promising anomalies. The Reed Lake discovery was made largely as a result of the 2007 VTEM survey. The Reed Lake deposit is completely blind with 25 meters of dolomite cover concealing the rocks."

VMS Ventures' primary VTEM geophysical consultant is Lakewood, Colorado based Condor Consulting Inc. Condor is a world-leader in the processing and assessment of airborne EM data, and have been working with VTEM data since 2002. Condor's president Ken Witherly is very familiar with the Flin Flon-Snow Lake VMS belt and is working with the Company on its VTEM package. He states: "VMS has a first class approach to exploration in the Flin-Flon-Snow Lake belt that builds on the excellent quality of their VTEM data with cutting edge geochemical techniques and a wealth of local geological experience."

Historical compilation and analysis

VMS Vice President, Dr. George Gale has 35 years of experience with Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposits, primarily in Manitoba, and VMS Director of Technical Operations, Dr. Mark Fedikow has 25 years of experience with mineral exploration and geochemical exploration techniques in locations around the globe. Dr. Ron Scott, Exploration Manager in Snow Lake and President, John Roozendaal, complete the core technical team. George and Mark bring tremendous knowledge and understanding of Manitoba's mineral endowment and have visited and studied most of the significant occurrences and deposits in the province. Obviously, their familiarity with Manitoba's mineral resources has impacted the Company's property package selections for the past four years, but it also has a tremendous impact on the greatest challenge, which is narrowing the choices for drill targets within this large property package.

Dr. Gale's strategy of testing historical drill core for trace elements has been very helpful in determining the validity of anomalies, particularly on the properties that are dolomite covered and do not have outcropping rocks. This strategy has already paid dividends during this past year with the recognition of a new occurrence of gold and silver on the Puella Bay property, which helped guide the Company's most recent drill program and resulted in the acquisition of 25 new claims (approximately 60 square kilometres) within the Puella Bay felsic unit last month.

Geological mapping

The foundation of a sound approach to any mineral exploration program is geological mapping and it is a key component in the Company's exploration approach to massive sulphide type mineralization. On properties where the prospective volcanic rocks are buried beneath the layer of dolomite, particular attention is paid to the re-assessment of core from both historic and recent drill programs. Geological and geochemical observations are made on these underlying prospective volcanic rocks. In areas where dolomite cover is absent, geological mapping crews are able to assess the geological architecture of the property, which provides a focus for follow-up with appropriate ground surveys.

The 2009 summer plan will include a three month geological mapping program involving two geologists and a geological assistant. The mapping will focus on the new Puella Bay claims and the Sails Lake and Morton Lake properties. These are areas with abundant felsic volcanic rocks and alteration that is typically associated with VMS type copper-zinc deposits. The objective of the mapping programs is to provide detailed base maps for evaluation of geophysical datasets and to guide rock and soil geochemical surveys.

Geochemistry

Dr. Mark Fedikow has extensive knowledge and field experience with a wide range of today's geochemical exploration techniques. He is a regular speaker on the topic at conferences all over the world. The use of geochemical survey methods is important to confirm assumptions from VTEM and geologic mapping programs where rocks outcrop, but it is an essential part of the VMS strategy to hunt for deposits hidden by the dolomite cover. VMS has been aggressive in acquiring properties within the dolomite covered areas where the same volcanic rocks that host copper-zinc deposits exist, in large part, because of the team's geochemical expertise. Dr. Fedikow is presently designing a 2009 summer geochemistry program for six of the Company's projects. Details will be announced shortly.

Ground Geophysical Surveys

Following the discovery of mineralization on the Reed Lake property in 2007, the Company used various ground geophysical systems to determine the most effective methods to better understand the discovery, but also to examine critical characteristics of mineralized zones for future exploration. The Discovery Zone mineralization was detected by all systems at shallow depths. Deeper portions of the deposit were identified using IP, DEEPEM, and borehole geophysical surveys and these systems are considered valuable in our search for new mineralization to depths below 450 m.

The DEEPEM system used on the property is the same technology that resulted in detection of the Lalor zinc-gold-silver deposit discovered at a depth of approximately 800 m near Snow Lake by HudBay Minerals in 2007. Both IP and DEEPEM systems can be configured for surveys at depths of 400 m or less, so that initial drill costs can be reduced by testing anomalies closer to surface.

John Roozendaal, President of VMS Ventures states: "The IP, DEEPEM and borehole geophysical surveys at Reed Lake combined with the geological knowledge obtained from drill core, have been critical in our analysis and interpretation for tracking deep mineralization associated with the Discovery Zone and defining new, previously unrecognized deep anomalies classified as high-priority. Our ground geophysical contractors, Koop Geophysics and Matrix Geotechnologies are very experienced in the belt and provide specific guidance in drill target selection. We are now taking the knowledge and experience acquired at Reed Lake to our planning for Puella Bay, Sails Lake and Copper projects this year."

Exploration Objects

Selected portions of the property package that have exhibited several characteristics of a VMS-type mineral deposit, such as associated conductors, magnetic signatures, and multi-element geochemical signatures are then defined as exploration objects. These much smaller object areas will vary in length from a few hundred metres to over a kilometre, and are then re-examined using more detailed geochemical surveys to further define areas of anomalous metal concentrations or they may be followed by ground geophysics to define the depth and orientation of the mineralized zone. Condor geophysical consultants are often brought in at this final data synthesis stage to assist in drill targeting.

Drilling Priorities for 2009

The Company has identified Sails Lake, the northern section of the Copper project and the Tower Zone at Reed Lake as high priorities for drilling this year. Final plans and announcements on these drill programs will come at the completion of the data synthesis work on the various exploration objects now identified on these properties.

Summary

In the coming 10 months, VMS will focus on advancing six projects towards defining discrete exploration objects. Those projects are 1) Sails Lake; 2) Puella Bay; 3) Copper; 4) McClarty Lake; 5) Leek Lake; and 6) 9-7. Each property will be the subject of a news release in the coming weeks.

The Reed Lake property, including the Tower Zone, continues to be the Company's top priority and will be discussed separately, as events proceed.

All technical information in this release has been reviewed by Dr. George Gale, P.Eng, who is the Qualified Person for the Company and Vice President of Exploration, VMS Ventures Inc.

VMS Ventures Inc. currently has a profile on Corebox.net which is updated as soon as assay results are released. The link to visit our Corebox profile is:

http://www.corebox.net/properties/reed_lake/.

Investors are invited to visit the VMS Ventures IR Hub at http://www.agoracom.com/IR/VMSVentures where they can post questions and receive answers or review questions and answers already posted by other investors. Alternatively, investors are able to e-mail all questions and correspondence to VMS@agoracom.com where they can also request to be added to the investor e-mail list to receive all future press releases and updates in real time.

VMS Ventures Inc. is focused primarily on acquiring, exploring and developing copper-zinc properties in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake VMS Belt. The Company also holds the largest land package considered prospective for nickel-copper mineralization at Lynn Lake, which is to date Canada's third largest nickel producing camp. The Company's project portfolio consists of the Snow Lake VMS project, the Lynn Lake Gabbros nickel-copper project, the Nickel Belt project, the South Bay nickel-copper-cobalt PGE property, and the Eden Lake Carbonatite Complex, Specialty Metals property. All VMS Ventures Inc. properties are located in the mining friendly province of Manitoba, Canada.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Rick Mark, CEO and Chair

The TSX Venture exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts: VMS Ventures Inc. Keith Patey Director of Communications (604) 986-2020 or Toll Free: 1-866-816-0118 (604) 986-2021 (FAX) Coal Harbor Communications Dale Paruk (604) 662-4505 or Toll Free: 1-877-345-3399 www.vmsventures.com