Albyn commissioning

Albyn commissioning

25 November 2011

Petropavlovsk PLC ("Petropavlovsk", "the Company" or, together with its subsidiaries, "the Group") is pleased to announce the commissioning of its fourth hard-rock gold mine, Albyn. The mine, located in the north-east of the Amur region, is relatively close to the Group's other gold assets and has been commissioned ahead of schedule.

In line with the Group's other gold mines, namely Pokrovskiy, Pioneer and Malomir, Albyn is an open-pit mine and will be extracting gold using resin-in-pulp ("RIP") treatment. The first processing line commissioned today has a design capacity of 1.8Mt of ore per annum. The commissioning of the second line is expected to be brought forward to Q4 2012 from the previously planned 2014. When both processing lines are in operation, the total capacity of the mine is expected to run at a throughput rate of 3.6Mt of ore per annum.

Commenting, Martin Smith, the Technical Director, said:

"The commissioning of a fourth mine is a significant achievement for the Group's team, demonstrating yet again the Group's strength in developing greenfield sites into producing gold mines within very competitive time-frames. Building a mine in a remote area like this is not easy and in the case of Albyn the team had to deal with a number of infrastructure challenges. In spite of this, we managed to commission the mine ahead of schedule."

Petropavlovsk's Chief Geologist, Nikolai Vlasov, emphasised that Albyn remains one of the most prospective projects of the Group with intensive exploration continuing to yield positive results:

"Last year's acquisition of two new licences in close proximity to the existing Albyn licence area was extremely important for the increase of the mine's reserves and resources and we look forward to updating the market on our exploration programme."

Commenting, Peter Hambro, Chairman, said:

"Bringing our fourth new gold mine into production from greenfield beginnings in such a short time is an outstanding achievement. The Group acquired the Albyn site in 2005 and during the past six years the team has done a first-class job exploring and developing the project, utilising our in-house expertise. The mine and its processing facilities were built ahead of schedule and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Group's geologists, mine planners, engineers and construction workers who have all worked towards this key milestone in the Group's history. I look forward to the contribution the mine will make in the coming years."