As a result of this increase, the ungeared, after tax NPV for the Project has increased by US$57 million to US$386 million at a 7% discount rate per annum. The IRR has increased to 52%.

Having reviewed the status of further metallurgical testwork on the Amantaytau Centralny sulphides, the company’s mining consultants WAI have now included the Amantaytau Centralny transitional material in AGF’s Ore Reserve statement, with an estimated flotation recovery of 85%. This transitional material, together with some underlying primary sulphide ores, was previously excluded from the production schedule in the BFS completed in June 2008, pending this review of further metallurgical testwork. This transitional material amounts to an additional 1.78 million tonnes of Ore Reserve, at an average grade of 4.73 grammes per tonne (g/t) containing 271,000 ounces of gold in the Probable Ore Reserve category.

Total JORC classified Proven and Probable Ore Reserves are 8.94 million tonnes at 6.99 g/t containing 2.01 million ounces of gold. These Ore Reserves have been estimated for stoping blocks above a 3.5 g/t cut-off at Amantaytau Severny and a 2.0 g/t cut-off at Amantaytau Centralny.

The above 2.01 million ounce reserve is contained within the JORC classified Measured and Indicated sulphide mineral resource base, totalling 13.5 million tonnes, at 6.89 g/t containing 2.99 million ounces of gold.

With the exception of the inclusion of the additional reserves and associated extraction costs, all other assumptions underlying the financial analysis in the original BFS remain unchanged. The Company will continue to provide updates in the event of any further material revisions to the underlying assumptions of the BFS.

Ongoing mine design and optimisation is expected to result in further mineral resources being converted to reserves by early 2009.

Richard Wilkins, CEO of Oxus, commented: "This represents a significant increase in the value of AGF’s underground sulphides project. This Project is economically robust and our priority now is to finalise the project financing to enable AGF to construct the sulphide mine during 2009 and achieve first underground production in early 2010."

Fifty percent of the AGF ore reserves and mineral resources are attributable to Oxus.