Avocet Mining PLC, ('Avocet' or 'the Company') is pleased to 
announce today that its subsidiary Société des Mines de Bélahouro SA 
('SMB') that operates the Inata gold mine in Burkina Faso, has 
entered into a standstill agreement with its major trade and 
financial creditors - a key milestone in SMB's balance sheet 
restructuring process. 


As announced earlier, SMB is in discussions with trade creditors, 
banks and government to stabilize SMB and with a view to restructure 
its balance sheet.

In this process a key step has now been achieved: SMB, its major 
trade and financial creditors - together representing approximately 
seventy per cent of SMB's debt - have agreed the terms of a 
standstill agreement for the duration of two months as strategic 
options are being explored in connection with a financial, debt and 
corporate restructuring of the SMB.

Pursuant to this agreement, SMB's major trade creditors and its bank 
shall refrain from exercising their rights and remedies, and taking 
any legal action to protect and preserve such rights and remedies, 
in relation to their outstanding debts. In turn, SMB agreed to a 
payment scheme for deliveries of services and goods during the 
standstill period that provides for payments thereof in sync with 
the receipt of the gold proceeds by SMB, once the mine has resumed 
its full operation.

The standstill agreement is part of a complex process. As SMB moves 
on with the implementation of the agreement, it will have to ensure 
the support of all stakeholders. All of them (including creditors, 
government, key operational stakeholders and employees) will need to 
contribute to achieve a consensual restructuring solution. The 
backing of SMB's major trade creditors and its bank is greatly 
appreciated and gives the process momentum.


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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
Avocet Mining PLC	
Boudewijn Wentink, CEO
Yolanda Bolleurs, CFO
+44 20 3709 2570
	
Blytheweigh
Financial PR 	
Tim Blythe
Camilla Horsfall
Megan Ray
+44 207 138 3204

J.P. Morgan Cazenove
Corporate Broker
Michael Wentworth-Stanley
+44 20 7742 4000



NOTES TO EDITORS

Avocet Mining PLC ("Avocet" or the "Company") is an unhedged gold 
mining and exploration company listed on the London Stock Exchange 
(ticker: AVM.L) and the Oslo Børs (ticker: AVM.OL). The Company's 
principal activities are gold mining and exploration in West Africa.
In Burkina Faso the Company owns 90 per cent of the Inata Gold Mine. 
The Inata Gold Mine poured its first gold in December 2009 and 
produced 72,485 ounces of gold in 2016. Other assets in Burkina Faso 
include five exploration permits surrounding the Inata Gold Mine in 
the broader Bélahouro region. The most advanced of these projects is 
Souma, some 20 kilometers from the Inata Gold Mine.
The Company also holds an interest in the Tri-K project in Guinea. 
On 10 October 2016, the Company announced that it had agreed to 
dispose of 40 per cent of the project to Managem, a Moroccan group 
listed on the Casablanca stock exchange, which, which will increase 
upon completion of a bankable feasibility study for a CIL plant at 
the site, the incurring of expenditures of at least US$10 million, 
and the enlarging of the ore reserve, to 70 per cent (in the event 
of an increase of the reserve to 1 million ounce or more) or 60 per 
cent (if less than 1 million ounces).