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15 July 2009

Avocet Mining PLC ('Avocet' or the 'Company')

Director's Shareholding

Exercise of Options 

Notification of interest - Employee Benefit Trust

Avocet announces that it was informed today that Jonathan Henry, had on 13 July 2009 exercised options over 215,000 ordinary shares of 5p in the Company ('Options') with an exercise price of 35.5p and agreed with the Company to settle the exercise in accordance with the terms of the Avocet Mining PLC Share Option Scheme with a net issuance by the Company of 108,993 ordinary shares based on a share price of 72p at the time of exercise. The ordinary shares issued as a result of this exercise were issued from shares currently held by the Company as treasury shares.

Following the exercise of Options announced today, Jonathan Henry holds the following Options:

Number of options	Exercise price	Date from which exercisable	Expiry date
110,000	72p	27/11/06	27/11/10
263,415	82p	14/7/08	14/7/12
36,585	82p	14/7/08	14/7/10
500,000	103.25p	15/11/09	15/11/13
200,000	153.75p	9/7/11	9/7/15
450,000	81p	25/6/12	25/6/16

Maitland Trustees Limited as Trustee of the Avocet Mining Employee Benefit Trust ('EBT') informed the Company on 14 July 2009 that it had issued instructions to release 115,433 ordinary shares of 5p each in the Company to the beneficial ownership of plan members of the EBT. These EBT shares were allocated to employees of the Company in prior years as deferred share bonus awards. As a result of the releases Maitland Trustees Limited as Trustee of the EBT will hold a total of 924,551 ordinary shares, representing 0.5 per cent of the issued share capital of the Company.

Maitland Trustees Limited acts as the trustee for the Company's EBT, a plan established to reward employees for the performance of the Company on a long term basis and to enable the Company to continue to attract a high calibre of management and operational personnel. The directors of the Company are potential beneficiaries under the EBT and are deemed to be interested in those shares held or dealt in by the EBT for the purposes of section 324 of the Companies Act 1985.  

Of the 115,433 ordinary shares released from the EBT, the following directors have received their vested EBT shares:

 

				Deferred
			Number	share bonus
	Existing	Shares following	of EBT	given for	Closing	Percentage
	interest	options	shares	the following	interest	of issued
	in shares	exercised	released	financial years	in shares	share capital
Nigel McNair Scott	6,133,452		10,021	2006	6,143,473	3.15%
Jonathan Henry	877,259	108,993	51,086	2006/2008	1,037,338	0.53%
Sir Richard Brooke Bt.	81,080		2,784	2006	83,864	0.04%
John Newman	69,607		2,227	2006	71,834	0.04%
Robert Pilkington	214,507		2,227	2006	216,734	0.11%

 

Contacts:

Jim Wynn, Company Secretary, Avocet Mining PLC, 020 7907 9000

Richard Brown, Richard Greenfield, Ambrian Partners Limited, 020 7634 4700

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