First Copper production at Benkala

FRONTIER MINING LTD

("Frontier" or "the Company")

First Copper production at Benkala

Frontier Mining Ltd (AIM: FML), the AIM quoted copper exploration and development company focused on Kazakhstan, announces commencement of the first production of cathode copper at its 7,000 tonne per annum Solvent Extraction - Electro Winning ("SX-EW") plant at its flagship Benkala Copper Project.

Processing of the pregnant leach solution from the solution ponds has been successful and the copper content has reached a level suitable for electro-winning. The plating of the copper in solution onto the cathodes commenced at 01:00 on Tuesday 7 August, with the first copper sheets produced on Saturday 11 August 2012. Operations at the plant have continued since then. The Company will provide further production details once it has analysed the first weeks of production at the plant.

Erlan Sagadiev, CEO of Frontier commented: "I wish to congratulate the production team at Benkala on their hard work and success. The Company has followed correct procedures at each stage of the commissioning process to ensure a safe start to this complex process, which has resulted in the successful production launch. Now our team will turn its attention to ramping up the production level to the design capacity."

Latest operational photographs can be found on the Company's website www.frontiermining.com 

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Notes to Editor

Frontier Mining Limited is a copper exploration and development company with a focus on Kazakhstan. The Company's main activity is the Benkala Copper Project in North West Kazakhstan, which forms part of the Urals copper gold ore belt. Frontier has a 100% interest in Benkala through its subsidiary KazCopper LLP.

Frontier, through its wholly owned subsidiary FML Kazakhstan, also owns Baitemir, a potential copper gold porphyry deposit with associated gold and molybdenum situated on the Naimanjal exploration licence area in North East Kazakhstan.

Frontier maintains an administrative and technical office in Almaty, the former capital city of Kazakhstan and the main business centre in the South East. The Company also maintains offices in Aktyubinsk and Semipalatinsk, close to the Benkala and Baitemir operations respectively.

Benkala

A Competent Persons Report completed by Wardell Armstrong International ("WAI") in June 2010, estimated the oxide section of the Benkala project, which represents development of only ~10% of the total resource at Benkala, to have a NPV of $190 million, based on 0.5% diluted copper grade, 63% recovery and 185,000 tonnes of contained metal at a 6,000 USD per tonne copper price. Frontier will use the production platform of the SX-EW project currently under construction to finance further evaluation and technical studies required to advance development of the significant Benkala sulphide resources. Frontier expects first production at Benkala in the second quarter of 2012.

WAI updated their Joint Ore Reserves Committee resource estimate in February 2011, significantly increasing the measured and indicated resource for both oxide and sulphide ores. The oxide resource has increased by a total of 9.72kt to 174.38kt (+5.9%) and the sulphide resource by 65.54kt to 779.28kt (+9.2%) of copper. As well as the overall increase, both ore types now have significantly more resource in the measured category and there has been an increase in the average oxide grade percentage. In addition, the overall inferred resource has also increased by 42.8kt to 607.70kt of copper (+7.6%).

In January 2012 Frontier added the South Benkala mining area to its existing Benkala licence. The South Benkala area is approximately 10 kilometres south of Benkala and has a GKZ resource estimate of 94.5kt of oxide and 515.1kt of sulphide copper.

Baitemir

Baitemir was identified as the most attractive deposit on the Naimanjal licence area and an exploration drill program was developed to confirm the size and grades of the deposit. Frontier has now drilled almost 16,000 metres and, on the basis of positive results, has an additional 1,000 metre drilling programme for 2012. The Company is working to further define the mineral inventory, anticipating the generation of a mineral resource prepared in accordance with the guidelines of the JORC Code (2004) in 2012.

Issued Share Capital

Frontier Mining's shares are traded on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

Frontier has 1,860,913,920 ordinary shares issued.

For further information please visit: www.frontiermining.com