Operations and Exploration Update

25 April 2013

Mwana Africa PLC

("Mwana" or the "Company")

Operations and Exploration Update

Mwana Africa PLC is pleased to provide an update on operations and exploration activity for the quarter ending 31 March 2013.

Freda Rebecca

·; Gold production from Freda Rebecca for the 12 month period to March 2013 was 65,350ozs, a 36.8% increase to the comparable period last year.

·; C1 cash costs of US$883/oz for the 12 month period to March 2013, down from US$1,021/oz for the comparable period last year.

·; 12,510 ozs of gold sold by Freda Rebecca for the quarter despite decreased volumes being processed due to the leach tank failure in February 2013.

·; Disruption due to the tank failure was minimised and regular production throughput recommenced on 1st April using an interim tank configuration.

·; Pilot plant construction underway to evaluate the economic potential of Freda Rebecca tailings, with commissioning expected to be completed in the September quarter, 2013.

Zani Kodo

·; Resource upgrade - total combined JORC compliant gold resource of 2.6Moz, a 30% increase to the previous resource statement from February 2012.

·; Exploration drill campaign continues at Kodo Main, Lelumodi and Zani North with four diamond rigs drilling 21 holes for a total of 4,972m.

·; Key mineralised intercepts received in the quarter include:

o 13.3m at 3.06g/t (KDODD095)

o 37.0m at 2.44g/t (ZNSDD058)

o 5.5m at 5.7g/t (ZNSDD054)

Bindura Nickel Corporation

·; Trojan refurbishment programme completed with first shipment of nickel concentrate to Glencore dispatched on schedule in April 2013.

·; Resource upgrade - total combined JORC compliant nickel resource for the Trojan mine of 114,952t Ni, a 152% increase on previous resource statement.

Kalaa Mpinga, CEO of Mwana, commented: 

"This has been another significant period in Mwana's rapid development. It is a measure of our operating competence that we took the leach tank incident at Freda Rebecca in our stride, acting swiftly and decisively to minimise disruption and ensure that production could be restored as quickly as practicable. Zani Kodo continues to demonstrate its considerable potential with a 30% gold resource upgrade and the identification of Lelumodi as a major new exploration target. At Trojan, our first production of nickel concentrate follows a major resource increase earlier this quarter."

For further information please visit www.mwanaafrica.com or contact:

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. The first sale of concentrate to Glencore International took place in April2013.

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.

Further information on the Company can be found at www.mwanaafrica.com.

Freda Rebecca Gold Mine

A total of 12,510 ozs of gold was sold during the quarter ending 31st of March 2013. Gold output at FRGM for the 12 months to date was 65,350 ozs which represents a 36.8% increase on the comparable period last year and is in line with guidance provided in February 2013.

Table 1: Summary of Freda Rebecca Quarterly Production Results

Figures shown are unaudited and may vary upon final audit. Gold ounces produced incorporate gold released from or caught in 'lock-up' for each period.

C1 Cash cost includes costs for mining, processing, administration, accounting movements for stockpiles and gold-in-circuit, and, net proceeds from by-product credits. It excludes capital costs for exploration, mine development or processing mill capital works, and, the cost of royalties.

C2 Production Costreflects C1 costs plus depreciation and amortisation, thus incorporating the capital cost of production.

C3 Total Costreflects C2 plus interest, other indirect costs and royalties. Total cost represents all costs attributable to gold production over the period.

Production in the March quarter was adversely affected by the disruption caused to the processing circuit as a result of the failure of tank 3 and associated damage to tank 2 as reported previously in February. Following the incident immediate steps were taken to minimise the disruption, however the net effect on the circuit resulted in reduced milling throughput and reduced metallurgical recoveries for the quarter.

Underground operations were scaled back during the quarter to match a reduced milling profile. Cash costs increased against previous quarter due to the lower ounces produced. C1 Cash costs for the year ending March 2013 were $883/oz as compared to $1021/oz for the previous year, representing a decrease of 13.5%.

In January, Mwana announced that construction of a tailings retreatment pilot plant had commenced. The pilot plant will be used to test the viability of producing gold from the extensive tailings dumps at Freda Rebecca. All sub contractors have been appointed and construction is progressing on schedule with commissioning expected to be completed in the September quarter, 2013.

Further information about Freda Rebecca Gold Mine can be found at:

www.mwanaafrica.com/operations-and-exploration/zimbabwe/freda-rebecca-gold-mine 

Zani-Kodo JV

Exploration drilling continued with four diamond rigs active. 21 diamond holes for a total of 4,972m were completed during the quarter. Drilling was focused on three areas:

§ Kodo downdip extension

§ Lelumodi and extensions

§ Zani North

The location of these areas is shown in Figure 1.

An updated JORC resource was announced on the 26th of February 2013. The Zani Kodo total resource is reflected in Table 2 below.

Table 2: Zani Kodo JORC Resource

The combined resource for Zani Kodo, including Le Badolite and Zani Central, of 2.62 Moz @ 2.42 g/trepresents an increase of approximately 30% since February 2012. The indicated resource at Kodo has improved significantly and an open ended maiden resource at Lelumodi has been defined, which are both extremely positive.

Kodo Area

The Kodo area has been the main focus of drilling to date and contains a defined resource of 1.60Moz @ 3.54g/t.

Four holes were completed at Kodo during the quarter. These were concentrated on the downdip extension of the Kodo Main ore zone (Figure 2). Results were received for two holes and are tabulated below in Table 3 with locations shown in Figure 2.

*Widths reported are down hole measurements and as such not true widths

Table 3: Results received in the March 2013 quarter, Kodo area.

Results from hole KDODD094 indicate down dip continuity of a broad mineralized zone over a further 100m (from hole KDODD081, Figure 2). Results from hole KDODD095 indicate continuity of mineralized zones in the area between two ENE trending faults (Figure 2). The mineralized wireframes have been extended a further 100m down dip from hole KDODD082 (Figure 2).

Drilling of the final three holes in the current programme is in progress with anticipated completion in May 2013.

Zani North

A small drilling programme is in progress at the Zani North target which lies immediately south of Kodo. Three holes targeting shallow mineralised zones have been completed and sulphide rich BIF's have been successfully intersected. No assay results have been received to date.

Lelumodi and Extensions

Ten holes were completed during the reporting period. The final holes on a 50m x 50m grid over the main Lelumodi block were completed. Drilling also commenced on the northern and southern strike extensions of the mineralised zone.

Results were received for the final five holes at the Lelumodi main block, completing the drilling programme in this block. The best intersections are tabulated below in table 4, with locations shown in Figure 3.

*Widths reported are down hole measurements and as such not true widths

Table 4: Results received during Q1 2013, Lelumodi area.

The results indicate the following:

§ Hole ZNSDD054 intersected a 5.5m wide zone of brecciated BIF in the hanging wall of the main felsic zones.

§ Holes ZNSDD055, 056 and 058 all intersected the downdip continuation of the two main Lelumodi zones (Figure 4), and extend the mineralized wireframes a further 50m. Widths vary as anticipated, with the best intersection of 37m @ 2.44g/t present in hole ZNSDD058.

§ The mineralized zones were not intersected in Hole ZNSDD052 due to faulting.

Lelumodi Extensions

Drilling targeting the strike extensions of the Lelumodi mineralised zone is currently in progress along two SW-NE fence lines. To the north the drilling has intersected hanging wall mineralisation and is expected to intersect the main felsic zones shortly. To the south, drilling has successfully identified two parallel silicifed felsic units and hanging wall zones 250m along strike from the southern margin of Lelumodi. No assay results have been received to date.

Drilling at Kodo downdip extension and Zani North will be completed by May 2013. For the remainder of the year drilling will be focused on extending the strike length of the Lelumodi zone to both north and south as well as targeting the overall strike extension of the major gold in soil anomaly, initially at the Dilolo area (Figure 1).

Further information about Zani Kodo can be found at:

www.mwanaafrica.com/operations-and-exploration/drc/zani-kodo-project

Bindura Nickel Corporation

The Trojan refurbishment programme for the surface milling, flotation, tailings and concentrate handling facilities progressed well in the March quarter. The following notable milestones were achieved in the period:

·; Completion of the Trojan refurbishment programme

·; Processing Plant cold commissioning completed second week of February, 2013.

·; Processing Plant hot commissioning completed, third week of March, 2013.

·; Milled ore tonnage for February and March was 60,555 tonnes.

Ramping up of underground operations continued in the quarter under review. For the quarter to March the following was achieved:

·; Underground development - 1,355m

·; Ore hoisted and crushed - 28,106 tonnes

·; Waste hoisted - 34,045 tonnes

·; Crushed ore stocks at end of quarter - 48,353 tonnes

Post the March quarter, Mwana announced that the first shipment of nickel concentrate was dispatched from Trojan mine on the 15th of April.

Mwana announced an upgrade of the Trojan Nickel Resource in February 2013 with the following highlights:

·; The total Nickel resource for the Trojan Nickel Mine is now 114,952t Nickel (based on a 0.45% Ni cut off), compared to 45,600t previously.

·; The overall resource grade has increased from 1.29% to 1.51%.

·; Down dip extension of high grade massive sulphide zone within the disseminated sulphide main ore body has been confirmed.

·; Drilling confirms that the orebody remains open at depth.

Table 5 shows the combined total JORC resource at Trojan.

Table 5:Trojan Total Nickel Resource

The resource drilling programme at Trojan continued during the quarter. The current phase of drilling is targeting the eastern extension of the resource below 37 level between section lines 20E and 40E.

A fatal accident occurred at Trojan Mine during the quarter. Mr. Munemo, a Lashing Assistant at the Trojan Mine, passed away on the 2nd of March 2013 as a result of injuries sustained from an incident that occurred underground. A thorough review of all underground safety procedures was undertaken to ensure the risk of accidents in the future is minimised.

Further information about Bindura Nickel Corporation can be found at:

www.mwanaafrica.com/operations-and-exploration/zimbabwe/bindura-nickel-corp-bnc 

Katanga Concessions - Hailiang Joint Venture

SEMHKAT- Katanga

In February 2013 Mwana announced the formal signing of the Joint Venture Agreement with Zhejiang Hailiang Company Limited ("Hailiang") covering 28 licences held by Mwana in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Figure 5). This followed the announcement in August 2012 that Mwana had entered into a Cooperation and Development Agreement ("CDA") for these licences. The CDA required that the parties enter into a detailed joint venture agreement to implement the CDA.

Towards the end of March2013, the SEMHKAT exploration team commenced the cessation of exploration activities at SEMHKAT in preparation for the hand-over to Hailiang of the exploration programme. Hailiang will assume operational control of the exploration programme for the JV licences during April 2013.

Lunsano

The heavy rains over the firstquarter hamperedwork and ledtothesuspension of field work during the month of February due to safety considerations. Some field work on priority areas was conducted during January and March. However data management continued throughout the quarter.

Geological Mapping

Detailed geological mapping of priority areas utilizing trenching and pitting continued intermittently over the quarter. Mapping progress was hindered by heavy downpours over the period. Investigations focusing on advancing Priority 1 & 2 areas into drill targets continued with minimal trenching and pitting possible over the quarter. Pits and trenches were logged and the geology was updated on plan (Figure 2). Trenching and pitting continued to confirm the Cu-Co mineralization potential of brecciated shale zones.

A combined total of 832 samples comprising pit and trench samples were assayed by the Niton hand-held XRF.

Pit geochemistry

A total of 245 pit samples from Priority 1 area were analyzed. Commendable average pit copper results came from P733 ([email protected], breccia), P731 ([email protected], breccia), P732 ([email protected], breccia), P718 (2.5m@756,2ppm, breccia), P721 ([email protected], breccia), P717 ([email protected], laterite) and P727 ([email protected], laterite).There are distinct complements between the soil and pit copper values. Brecciated shale zones indicate a higher potential for Cu-Co mineralisation.The updated pit geology and geochemistry results are displayed in Figure 6.

Trench geochemistry

A total of 587 trench samples derived from 10 trenches in Priority 2 were analysed. The results show that both the sandstone and shale units to the east of Priority 2 contain copper though the shale units tend to have generally higher copper contents than the arkosic sandstone (Table 6) which is typical of the DRC Copper Belt in contrast to the Zambian Copper Belt.

Table 6: Priority 2 area trench intercepts

For associated maps (Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6), please click on, or paste the following link in to your web browser, to view the PDF file:

http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/1493D_-2013-4-24.pdf