KEFI Gold and Copper plc announced a number of important developments in relation to the Company's Tulu Kapi Gold Project. KEFI reported the receipt of formal confirmation from the National Bank of Ethiopia (the Ethiopian central bank) of the details for the operation of offshore banking by the Company's operating subsidiary Tulu Kapi Gold Mines Share Company ("TKGM") and its project finance banks. This clarifies the operational details for the implementation of the policies set out in the recently published National Bank of Ethiopia Directives, waiving strategic mining projects from foreign exchange control and capital controls.

This is the last of many special permissions and policy changes agreed with the Ethiopian authorities over the years since KEFI assumed control of the Project, to allow modern project finance arrangements to be applied given there has been no industrial-scale mine development in Ethiopia for over 30 years. Tulu Kapi is now finally fully-permitted with only procedural administrative confirmations remaining. With all matters of principle for the Project having now been resolved with the authorities, the Project finance banks can now proceed to final credit approval for the Project's USD 190 million secured debt package.

Upon approval, the Project's detailed debt terms will have been resolved, as will the structure of the overall USD 390 million finance plan (secured debt component of USD 190 million, equity-risk-capital of USD 130 million and contractor supply of mining equipment of USD 70 million). This is considered the pivotal formal step for Project launch and, upon receipt of final credit approvals, the procurement teams and the social performance teams will be mobilised so that all final details can be inserted into the detailed definitive documents covering the Project, which can then be signed by all the parties involved in the Project, which would rank as the largest single export-generator for Ethiopia given its estimated annual revenues of c. USD 250 million. The Company expects full Project launch to commence in the current quarter as previously advised.

In addition to the historical KEFI investment of c. USD 90 million, and the planned secured debt and mining contractor components, the USD 130 million equity-risk component has been allocated within the project finance syndicate and comprises equity-risk notes to investors already active in Ethiopia and share issues by TKGM and KEFI Minerals (Ethiopia) Limited to Federal and Regional Government. Bank credit approval will allow formal Board approvals to proceed for the equity component and, s s s'ject to final confirmations, all Project funding will have been secured.