African Copper Plc, the AIM and Botswana-listed copper production and exploration company, says its subsidiary Messina Copper Botswana (Pty) Ltd has awarded a new long-term contract to provide hard-rock open cast mining services to Diesel Power Mining (Pty) Ltd (“Diesel Power”) a subsidiary of JSE listed Buildmax Limited in respect of two of African Copper’s existing open pit copper mining operations.

The Contract commenced during February 2014 with a duration of 52 months, of which the first four months will be served at the Thakadu Mine and thereafter the remaining 48 months will be served at the Mowana Mine, located approximately 130 kilometres north-west of Francistown.

The Contract is denominated in Botswana Pula (“BWP”) and is valued at approximately BWP1 billion (c.US$112.7m) over the contract period. The scope of the Contract is conventional open pit mining and drilling, using plant valued at BWP160 million (c.US$18.0 million), of which the majority will be sourced from the existing plant fleet of Buildmax.

Under the terms of the Contract, Diesel Power will deploy a highly qualified management team with extensive experience in Africa, and Buildmax will establish permanent support structures at the Mowana Mine in Botswana.

African Copper is an AIM and Botswana-listed copper producer and exploration company, currently focused on Botswana. The Company’s flagship project is the copper producing open pit Mowana Mine. African Copper also owns the rights to the adjacent Thakadu-Makala deposit. Both deposits are situated on the highly prospective Matsitama belt, located close to Botswana’s second largest city, Francistown, in the north-eastern part of the country.