Petra Diamonds has received Ministerial consent in terms of Section 11 of South Africa’s Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002 (MPRDA) has been granted for the cession and transfer of the new order mining right for the Finsch diamond mine from De Beers Consolidated Mines to Afropean Diamonds. Afropean represents Petra’s interests in Finsch; Afropean being owned as to Petra 74% and Petra’s Black Economic Empowerment partners 26%.

As announced in January 2011, Petra (via Afropean) entered into an agreement with De Beers to acquire Finsch. A key condition of the acquisition was that Ministerial consent under Section 11 of the MPRDA for the cession of the Finsch new order mining right be granted. Following the granting of the Section 11 consent, the only remaining material condition is the registration of the transfer of the Finsch new order mining right in the South African Mineral and Petroleum Titles Registration Office; this is expected to happen in the near future.

When this last condition has been met and the acquisition completes, Petra will publish a Finsch resource statement in accordance with the AIM Guidance for Mining Companies.

Johan Dippenaar, CEO of Petra: “We are delighted to have received the Section 11 Ministerial consent. The acquisition process is now in the very final stages and we expect it to complete in the near future. Petra will then take over management of this major producing diamond mine which, after an initial three month bedding down period, is expected to add approximately 125,000 ct/month to Petra’s production.”