African Pioneer plc informed shareholders of Permitting and Ore Processing Testwork at its 85% owned Ongombo (copper-gold) Project located within Exclusive Prospecting Licence EPL 5772, 40km NE of the capital city, Windhoek, Khomas Region, Namibia. The proposed off-site processing arrangement would significantly reduce the capital requirements of the Ongombo Project. In parallel, with metal recovery testwork, Addison Mining Services (AMS) has indicated significant increases in resources with further scope for another meaningful increase in Project CuEq grade contingent upon follow-up work to test gold content in the East/Ost Shoots.

The Board has approved a short drill programme to twin some historic Goldfields Namibia holes to assess the Au content. Goldfields Namibia often did not assay for gold but in some of their drill holes in areas of East/Ost Shoots that were assayed for gold they returned values ranging from 9.6g/t Au over 0.17m to 0.12g/t Au over 1.1m. The average calculated gold grade based on a limited population of samples, if repeated across the shoots, potentially offers a significant addition to the overall CuEq grade of the deposit.

The Company has engaged the services of a highly experienced mining engineer with a career in narrow orebody exploitation in African projects. The Company is in advanced discussions with parties regarding project level funding that will enable progression of the initial Ongombo open-pit to exploit the easily-accessible surface ore resources. In this context engineering design of pre-production works has commenced along with design of the lay-out of internal access roads and the accommodation, office upgrades and fencing required to securely operate the mine site.