June 7th, 2002

TARKWA, Ghana - Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited (Nasdaq: ASL) of Ghana has added yet another Knelson Concentrator to their stable bringing the number of units at Ashanti operations to seventeen in total. These are comprised of seven Knelson XD48 units, eight Knelson CD30 units, one Knelson CD20 and one Knelson CD10 unit.

Ashanti, through project engineers Metallurgical Design and Management (MDM) of South Africa, placed an order for a Knelson KC-XD48 for their Idaupriem Project in Ghana where they have undertaken an expansion to increase plant capacity from its present 2.9 million TPA to 4 million TPA.

"We have selected Knelson as our primary gravity process at all operations processing ore which is amenable to gravity concentration," stated George Potter, Ashanti's Managing Director Group of Metallurgy and Supplies.

"We are very strong proponents of gravity concentration and have selected the Knelson Concentrator on the basis its efficiency to recover a significant portion of the overall gold into a very small high-grade concentrate mass," continued Potter.

Under typical circumstances, by treating 10-20% of the grinding circuit circulating load, the Knelson Concentrator will account for 25-50% of overall gold production depending on the gravity amenability of the ore-type. This determination is made by conducting a standard 'gravity recoverable gold' (GRG) test which was originally developed at McGill University in Canada.

"We view the Knelson Concentrator as a simple, reliable and robust unit which compliments downstream recovery processes by producing low cost ounces right out of the grinding circuit where free milling gold is first liberated and available to be recovered," added Potter.

Knelson is represented in Ghana by Multi-Tech Services Ltd. who have been instrumental in the success of the Knelson Concentrators within the Ashanti group.

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