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Afferro Mining, Baobab Resources, Eastern Platinum, Hochschild Mining news briefs

Contributed by Fox-Davies Capital

Afferro Mining has released its latest exploration results from its Nkout iron ore project in Cameroon.

In this news:
- Assays from 74 diamond drill holes completed in 2H'12 for 4,349m of drilling
- Highlights include:
1. 44m at 51.7% Fe from surface, including 11m at 62.2% Fe and 10m at 59.2% Fe
2. 28m at 53.4% Fe from surface, including 12m at 55.8% Fe
3. 26m at 52.0% Fe from surface, including 12m at 60.6% Fe
4. 9m at 59.9% Fe from surface
5. 26m at 50.5% Fe from surface
- Drilling programme to continue, targeting open areas of further potential DSO and potentially easily beneficiated high grade saprolite
- Full structural review of the Nkout data set underway
- Results from drilling programs completed at Nkout have been returned in preparation for commencement of Mineral Resource Estimation 5 ("MRE5").

FD Comment:
Afferro are actively seeking to delineate further DSO potential to improve the project economics and defer some of the capex requirements outlined in the PEA. In addition the recent metallurgical test work suggests that higher grade Saprolite ore can be upgraded to a 59%-64% product through attrition scrubbing, further improving the economics by reducing the capex and opex by not having to mill the initial ore and combining the DSO and saprolite circuits. However, the bigger picture still remains on infrastructure and although Nkout is the closest to port (the deep water port of Kribi is currently under construction), the termination of talks with Jindal Steel were a setback for investors.

Baobab Resources has announced that the global resource at its 85% owned VTM project at Tete, Mozambque has a global JORC resource of 724.62Mt.

In this news:
- Results of 2012 infill drill programme
- 152.34Mt Indicated and 572.29 Inferred
- Total 724.62 at 34% Fe, 0.4% V2O5, 12.6%TiO2, 18.8% SiO2 and 9.7% Al2O3
- Coffey mining estimate average concentrate characteristics for combined resource as 59.7% Fe, 0.8% V2O5, 10.5% TiO2, 0.9% SiO2, 3.2% Al2O3, 0.001% P and 0.2% S at a Mass Recovery of 42.9%.

FD Comment:
Although the headline numbers are large, the real focus of drilling for the Company is getting the resource in the Stage 1 pit shell upgraded to the measured category to progress the DFS as announced on Tuesday. In the meantime we should get a better indication of the project once the PFS is released which is just waiting for the completion of the capex numbers. The average concentrate characteristics quoted are for the entire resource, and we know there will be some variations within the resource so we expect it will vary and should improve, however mining selectivity will be limited within the mineralised zones. For comparison an average titano-magnetite concentrate should expect to be around 57% Fe, 12%Ti and 0.5%V.

Eastern Platinum Ltd announced that all Section 54 notices issued by the Department of Mineral Resources ("DMR") have been lifted and that full operations at the Zandfontein section of the Crocodile River Mine will resume effective Thursday 21 February, 2013.

Hochschild Mining plc announced its wholly owned subsidiary, 1710503 Alberta Ltd. has completed its previously announced compulsory acquisition under the Business Corporations Act (Alberta) of all of the outstanding Andina common shares not already owned by it following its previously announced successful take-over bid. As a result of the acquisition, Hochschild now indirectly owns 100% of the issued and outstanding Andina Shares.

At Andina's request, trading of the Andina Shares has been halted on the TSX Venture Exchange and Andina expects that it will be delisted from the Exchange on or about 22 February 2013 subject to the approval of the Exchange. In addition, Andina intends to apply to the relevant securities commissions to cease to be a reporting issuer in all applicable jurisdictions in Canada.