REFERENCES and PRESS RELEASES

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- October 12, 2006 -- Consolidated Puma Minerals Corp. (TSX VENTURE: CPW) ("Puma", the "Company"), a 39% owned affiliate of Bema Gold Corporation (TSX: BGO)(NYSE: BGO)(AIM: BAU) is pleased to announce further results from the 2006 diamond drill program at its 72% owned East Pansky Platinum Group Elements ("PGE") property. East Pansky is located in the Kola Peninsula of northwestern Russia east of the Federova Tundra project where Barrick Gold Corporation is currently evaluating an advanced PGE exploration program.

Puma's ongoing drill program of the main PGE-bearing Footwall Contact ("FWC") horizon, (a primary target on the East Pansky property), has been extended along strike to the Chuarvi-West Chuarvi area and a summer mapping and sampling program has further extended that horizon to the Sungyok area. This area is approximately 11 kilometres west of the previously reported East Chuarvi area, for a total confirmed strike length of approximately 32 kilometres of which only 10-12 kilometres has been explored in any detail. A second mineralized olivine horizon, located 60-90 metres below the FWC has also been traced on surface and through re-evaluation of previous drill information to Sungyok.

The drilling is presently focused at Chuarvi-West Chuarvi over a strike length of approximately 2 km, targeting both the FWC and the Olivine Horizon. significant selected assay results are presented in the table below, though further results are still outstanding for the majority of the completed drill holes. A drill program is about to commence at the Sungyok area over a profile previously drilled by a Russian group, which was not extensively sampled. Re-evaluation of this drilling has revealed both the presence of the FWC and olivine horizons and the fact that little or no sampling was carried out on these key horizons, leaving them effectively untested.

Significant assay results from the recent drilling at Chuarvi are presented below:

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                                    Inter-
      Location  Target   From    To   val   Au   Pt    Pd PGE+Au  Pd/Pt
DDH #          horizon     (m)   (m)   (m)(g/t)(g/t) (g/t)  (g/t) Ratio
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P-467  Chuarvi    OH(i) 236.4 239.6   3.2 0.09 0.73  3.62   4.44    5.0
                  Incl. 236.4 237.9   1.5 0.16 1.15  6.00   7.31    5.2
                  Incl. 237.9 239.6   1.7 0.03 0.35  1.45   1.83    4.1
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P-469  Chuarvi    OH(i) 381.5 385.8   4.3 0.11 0.58  3.45   4.14    5.9
                  Incl. 383.9 384.2   0.3 0.36 1.66  8.54  10.56    5.1
                  Incl. 385.5 385.8   0.3 0.17 1.80 12.50  14.47    6.9
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P-473  Chuarvi    OH(i) 224.2 226.8   2.6 0.14 0.60  3.51   4.25    5.9
                  Incl. 225.4 225.8   0.4 0.57 2.29 13.30  16.16    5.8
                        261.5 263.6   2.1 0.06 0.45  1.46   1.97    3.2
                  Incl. 261.9 262.2   0.3 0.18 1.22  4.17   5.57    3.4
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(i) Olivine Horizon (OH)
Note: the Pd:Pt ratios of the OH horizon differ from the FWC (which runs
at about 2.2:1)

The 2006 drill program, when completed will consist of approximately 15,000 metres of drilling on the target FWC horizon and the Olivine-rich horizon just below this. The three main drill targets so far this year have been: East Chuarvi, Chuarvi (located 5 kilometres west of East Chuarvi) and West Chuarvi/Sungyok located approximately 12 kilometres west of East Chuarvi. All of these targets are located along the 50 kilometre strike length target horizon on the East Pansky and Kuksha properties.

To date in 2006, Puma has completed 38 diamond drill holes for a total of 10,415 m. These holes were drilled on 5 different areas with the majority on East Chaurvi (12 holes - 3,574 metres), Chuarvi (9 holes - 2,478 metres) and West Chuarvi (9 holes - 2,413 metres).

During October Puma is hosting an analysts/investors tour of its East Pansky PGE property in Russia. The tour will visit both, the field sites and current drilling as well as installations and offices at Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula.

The above results were submitted to Mekhanobr laboratories in St Petersburg, Russia and a full QA/QC program was inserted that includes, reference standards, blanks and duplicates (field, split and pulp). The QA/QC results for these drill hole assays fell within acceptable limits. The Qualified Person for this project is Tom Garagan (P.Geo) Vice President of Exploration for Bema Gold Corporation and a Director of Puma.