Nyota, through its subsidiary Golden Prospect Mining Company (“GPMC”), owns 51% of Yubdo Gold and Platinum Development Plc (“Yubdo Platinum”). Yubdo Platinum is the sole platinum producing company in Ethiopia. It is a small scale operation, currently producing approximately 100 ounces of platinum a year.

In 2001, GPMC entered into an incorporated joint venture with a local entrepreneur, Mr. Benti Tasissa (47%), to mine the Yubdo platinum deposit. In May 2005 the Mining Licence was transferred to Yubdo Platinum, with obligations to investigate modern mining methods and the process flowsheet for the treatment of platinum bearing laterite resources overlying the Yubdo Ultramfic Complex. In addition, GPMC was required to complete an environmental review, resource definition and carrying out further metallurgical testwork The Mining Licence covers 27.26 sq km within the Yubdo Exploration Licence which is 100% held by Nyota. The remaining 2% of Yubdo Platinum is held by Dr Kebede Belete. Nyota through its subsidiary Yubdo Platinum and Gold Development Company (“YPGD”) has recently submitted an application to the Ministry of mines for conversion of the existing Mining licence to an Exploration licence with the express purpose of undertaking detailed exploration to identify any potential hard rock source for the known lateritic and alluvial platinum mineralisation.

Location, Access and Infrastructure

The Yubdo Mine is 520km almost due west from Addis Ababa. The road is tarred to Gimbi (460km from Addis) and the remainder of the road is gravel. Yubdo village and the mine site have recently been connected to the grid and a digital telephone centre is under construction in the village.

Mining and Processing

Historically, approximately 2,700 kilograms of platinum have been produced at Yubdo by hydraulic mining, mostly during the period 1926-1941 but with small-scale production continuing to the present day. The mining took place in two principal pits, the Main Pit and the Deressa Pit, totalling about 3.3 square kilometres in area. The average thickness of laterite mined was reported as 10m equating to a total volume of 30 million cubic metres at a recovered grade of 0.090 grams per cubic metre.

The present operation, exploiting resources on the western margins of the Main Pit, is based on two 2.5m benches cut into laterite ore which is mined by hydraulic excavator and transported to the adjacent washing plant by dump truck. The Pilot Gravity treatment plant currently being commissioned will consist of a high intensity washing unit, and a multi-stage trommel that serves to disaggregate clay-rich particles. Undersize is directed through a Knelson concentrator and then onto a Gemini table. The concentrate is a saleable platinum concentrate. The scale of the former GPMC operation and the quantity of platinum recovered was modest. The complex metallurgy associated with the platinum bearing laterites and the resulting low recoveries has convinced Nyota of the merits of shtting down the small-scale pilot plant and focussing on exploration to locate any hard rock source for the mineralisation.

Metallurgical Testwork

Whilst the pilot plant programme has been suspended, Nyota will undertake further metallurgical testwork principally to find alternative processing methodologies to improve recoveries of platinum from the large laterite resource. Historic metallurgical test work suggests that the platinum is ferrous, fine grained and associated with clays within the saprolite – laterite.

Recent work by Minerva geologists has led to a re-interpretation of the mineralising geology at Yubdo and an exploration programme has been proposed to confirm the presence of platinum group metals in ultramafic rocks making up the Yubdo Complex where both the mineralogy and metallurgy of fresh ore is expected to be simpler than that associated with laterites and accordingly recoveries will be improved.

Concentrate and Sales

Minerva exported small quantities of platinum concentrates quarterly produced from the operation of a pilot plant. . The concentrates were couriered to London for refining at Engelhard refineries. The concentrate graded 55-73% platinum and 2-5% gold, with no other significant payable metal.

Resources

In 2006 Minerva carried out a programme of pitting over the ridge above and to the southwest of the present small-scale saprolite – laterite mining operation southeast of Yubdo village, in order to estimate the resource in this small area. Thirty pits were completed on a 60m x 60m square grid covering an area of 420m x 240m. Each pit was hand dug at a nominal 75cm diameter down to decomposed bedrock encountered at an average depth of about 10m. Channel sampling at one metre intervals down the side of the pits returned platinum values ranging up to 1.8 g/t Pt, with acceptable repeatability of duplicate samples suggesting that conventional sampling and assay procedures are effective for establishing the total platinum resource.

Based on the results of the pitting, GPMC has used a polygonal method to estimate a resource of 23,760 ounces (793kg) of platinum in 1,470,000 tonnes of laterite material with an average grade of 0.54g/t platinum within the limited area covered by the pitting programme. Importantly, the average grade of the laterite below a barren 1.5m soil layer was 0.82g/t platinum. The pitting programme also indicated that both laterite thickness and platinum grades are lower over the ridge area than on its flanks. Geological mapping shows that potentially mineralised laterite extends along strike for several kilometres on the Yubdo ultramafic intrusion. The ease of mining and potential for further platinum bearing laterite resources within the licence area provides Nyota with the motivation to undertake further metallurgical testwork on the laterites to improve platinum recovery.

Mapping of bedrock exposed in the pitting and in outcrop shows fractures containing quartz-carbonate with pyrite in the form of boxworks and planar fracture fillings occurring in zones trending east of north with generally steep westward dips, cutting the serpentinised dunites and pyroxenites of the Yubdo Ultramafic Complex. Pit sampling shows PGM values in this material relative to fresh rock which support the contention that PGMs are concentrated by hydrothermal action associated with zones of fracturing.