Asa Resources Regulatory News (ASA)

28 May 2013

Mwana Africa PLC

("Mwana" or the "Company")

Klipspringer Slimes Retreatment Programme

Mwana is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Southern Era Diamonds Inc. ("Southern Era") has concluded an agreement with Greenhurst Mining and Exploration (Pty) Ltd ("Greenhurst") to re-treat fine residue tailings at Mwana's Klipspringer diamond mine on a profit share basis. The proceeds accruing to Southern Era will assist in covering the care and maintenance costs at Klipspringer. In terms of the agreement Greenhurst will supply and operate a diamond processing facility to extract diamonds that are 0.5mm-1.5mm in size. Southern Era will not incur any operating costs nor be required to invest in the project. The recovered diamonds will be sold by open tender.

Greenhurst engaged the services of Gemcore Sampling (Pty) Ltd ("Gemcore") to collect and process bulk samples from the slimes dams. Gemcore is a bulk sampling company based in Kimberley, South Africa, that has completed several bulk sampling projects in Southern Africa. Sampling of the Marsfontein and Klipspringer fine residue tailings was completed in late 2012 and the results demonstrated that there are sufficient quantities of diamonds present to make re-treatment economically viable. Gemcore will remain as the operator for this project and will be responsible for both the mining and processing of the slimes material. The project is funded by Greenhurst using a mix of asset finance and shareholder contributions. 

Construction of the processing plant and site preparation is in progress. The processing plant will have a nominal capacity of 50 tonnes per hour, with a projected monthly throughput of 22,560 tonnes. From the sampling results, the average revenue from retreatment of the Marsfontein fine residue tailings dam is expected to be $21.81 per tonne, however, due to the nature of slimes re-treatment the actual revenue generated may vary. Gemcore aims to complete commissioning in the 4th Quarter of 2013 and production will commence thereafter. The project is expected to have a duration of about 44 months.

Kalaa Mpinga, Chief Executive Officer of Mwana, commented: 


"We are delighted to have partnered with Greenhurst and Gemcore on this venture and we look forward to working with them. The proceeds from this venture should contribute to our ongoing care and maintenance costs at Klipspringer whilst we review the restart of commercial operations at the mine."

For further information contact:

Mwana Africa PLC Tel: +44 (0)20 7654 5580

Donald McAlister / Lorenz Werndle

Nominated Adviser and Broker

Liberum Capital Limited Tel: +44 (0)20 3100 2000

Michael Rawlinson / Tom Fyson / Christopher Kololian

Joint Broker

Peel Hunt Tel: +44 (0)20 7418 8900

Matthew Armitt / Andy Crossley

Public & Investor Relations

Tavistock Communications Tel: +44 (0)20 7920 3150

Ed Portman / Simon Hudson / Mike Bartlett

About Mwana Africa PLC

Mwana Africa PLC is a pan-African, multi-commodity mining and development company. Mwana's principal operations and exploration activities cover gold, nickel, copper and diamonds in Zimbabwe, the DRC and South Africa.

The restart of operations at The Trojan Nickel Mine (owned by Mwana's Zimbabwe subsidiary Bindura Nickel Corporation ("BNC")) follows four years during which all of the BNC assets were on care and maintenance. In September 2012, Bindura Nickel Corporation carried out a restructuring and recapitalisation involving US$23m being invested into BNC which has allowed it to restart the Trojan mine. First sale of concentrate to Glencore took place in April 2013.

Mwana's Freda Rebecca gold mine in Zimbabwe, having restarted operations in 2009, produced 65,350 ozs of gold in the 12 months to March 2013.

In February 2013, Mwana announced that the gold mineral resource at its Zani Kodo project in Democratic Republic of Congo had increased to 2.6 million ounces.

In February 2013, Mwana announced it had signed a Joint Venture Agreement with Zhejiang Hailiang Company Limited to jointly explore some of its copper license areas in the Katanga Province of the DRC.