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Afferro Mining, Berkeley Mineral Resources, Condor Gold, Mariana Resources news briefs

Contributed by Fox-Davies Capital

Afferro Mining Inc. announced the initial results for the exploration work undertaken at its 70% owned Ngoa prospect, which lies within the Essong exploration permit, adjacent to the Nkout iron ore project and 20km from the proposed south Cameroon rail corridor. These drilling results were encouraging with multiple intersections from surface above 40% Fe and a number of down-hole length intersections in excess of 55% Fe. We believe Ngoa can become a satellite resource to support scalable mining of up to 35mtpa at Nkout, which is situated less than 5km to the north of Ngoa. The recent preliminary economic assessment showed Nkout to be a robust project; additional high grade resources at Ngoa will enhance the already attractive economics.

Berkeley Mineral Resources PLC announced that it has begun a pilot programme to produce copper cathode from tailings stockpiles located at the former Bwana Mkubwa mine, Ndola, Copperbelt Province, Northern Zambia. The Directors believe that the Company's first cash flow should be generated from this project in the third quarter of 2013. On 10 August 2012, BMR announced that it had concluded its due diligence on further substantial copper tailings clusters identified in the Ndola area in northern Zambia and that Joint Venture negotiations were proceeding. BMR has become interested in a 75% shareholding in Ndola Mineral Resources Limited ("NMR"), a newly registered Zambian company, which is in the process of taking transfer of a Prospecting Permit/ Small Scale Mining Licence held by Phoenix Materials Limited ("Phoenix"). Phoenix will hold a 25% free carry shareholding in NMR. The cash consideration payable by BMR to Phoenix is US$300,000. Phoenix currently has a small scale Prospecting Permit but has applied for a Small Scale Licence which will be assigned to NMR when received.
The Company has also concluded a Joint Venture Agreement ("JVA") with the Bwana Mkubwa Consortium, whose members are the licencees of five Artisanal licences. These licence areas are all located within the former Bwana Mkubwa Mine Site. BMR is pleased to have secured the JVA as it will secure the employment of local Zambians who have significant knowledge and experience of the site.
Following due diligence by BMR's consultants, it is estimated that the stockpiles concerned, located at the former Bwana Mkubwa mine, contain some 4-5 million tonnes of mineralised waste, ore and tailings dumps. Analysis indicates that copper grades vary between 0.3% and 1.00%. BMR does not intend to carry out further work to delineate a resource statement to an internationally recognised standard and these estimates therefore cannot be relied upon for economic assessment purposes. However, the Company intends to process enough mineralised material from the dumps to provide an output of 150 tonnes of copper metal per month.

Condor Gold has had the transfer of the 27sq km La Mojarra Concession to Condor's wholly owned, Nicaraguan subsidiary La India Gold S.A. approved by the Director General of the Department of Mines. Under the terms of the Agreement the said approval triggers a US$240,000 payment, which has been paid in cash. The addition of La Mojarra Concession increases the Company's La India Project by 27km² to 194km² contained within seven contiguous wholly owned concessions. The La Mojarra Concession lies along strike to the South of the India-California Vein trend and provides a potential strike extension of the La India Structure. In addition, based on surface geological features, the Company believes that there is the potential for the discovery of significant buried gold mineralisation as La Mojarra Concession lies to the south of a regional fault running south-west to north-east and represents the downward thrust of the fault line. Condor plans to undertake a regional rock chip, soil sampling, geophysics and geological mapping programme on the La Mojarra Concession in order to target deep exploratory drilling locations for potential buried gold deposits.

Mariana Resources has provided an exploration update on its projects in Argentina and Chile. In Northern Chile at SCM Tierra Noble (Mariana 20.6%) a TEM survey was conducted by Aeroquest at the Buenaventura (51% Tierra Noble) and Rodados Negros projects (100% Tierra Noble). TEM and magnetic data processing is being finalised. A 4,000m RC drill programme is planned for Buenaventura next month, based on the preliminary results of the geophysical survey and compilation of all results to date. Project generation activities continue along the IOCG Belt with several areas of interest under investigation. At Jiguata (Option to acquire 100%) preliminary work last field season by Mariana indicated potential for high sulphidation gold mineralisation at depth. However, it was decided, after a recent strategic review, to relinquish its rights under the option agreement and return the property to Catalina Resources Plc. In the Santa Cruz province in Argentina, regional exploration of Mariana's extensive Eastern Deseado Massif Portfolio (Mariana 100%) is nearing completion with a separate update expected in the next few weeks and a review of post-resource drill results at Las Calandrias is continuing. At Los Amigos Joint Venture (Mariana 30%) there was no project activity reported last quarter. Mariana has reached an agreement in principle to amend the existing joint venture terms with joint venture partner, Hochschild. The amended terms include immediate vesting of interests at 70% Hochschild and 30% Mariana, with on-going project expenses on a pro-rata basis and subject to a standard dilution clause. In addition, Mariana's interest will convert to a royalty on net smelter returns when its project interest falls below 10%. This arrangement will allow Mariana to focus more on its eastern Deseado Massif properties.