LON - Lonmin - Number one furnace shut down

LON - Lonmin - Number one furnace shut down                                     
Lonmin Plc                                                                      
(Incorporated in England and Wales)                                             
(Registered in the Republic of South Africa under registration number           
1969/000015/10)                                                                 
JSE code: LON                                                                   
Issuer Code: LOLMI & ISIN: GB0031192486                                         
("Lonmin")                                                                      
Number One Furnace Shut Down                                                    
Lonmin announces that a leak has occurred adjacent to one of the matte tap holes
in its number one furnace.  The furnace has been shut down and no one was hurt  
as a result of the leak.  We currently believe that the necessary repairs to the
furnace will take around 30 to 40 days.  During this time we will run our three 
Pyromet furnaces and build up concentrate inventory ahead of the Smelter.  We   
currently have no plans to sell additional concentrate over and above our       
current commitments.                                                            
In the second half of 2006 in order to provide additional smelting capacity and 
as a back up to the number one furnace we took a decision to recommission our   
Merensky furnace.  We plan to run this in parallel with the number one furnace  
in the second half of our 2007 financial year to reduce accumulated concentrate 
inventory and allow us to mitigate the impact of the number one furnace outage  
on production.  Our best current estimate is that our production for the first  
half of the 2007 financial year will be reduced by between 30,000 and 40,000    
ounces of Platinum.  We will use our best endeavours to recover these Platinum  
ounces in the second half of the financial year.                                
Enquiries:                                                                      
Alex Shorland-Ball                                     +44 (0)207 201 6060 or   
Vice President,                                        +44 (0)7917 038 684      
Investor Relations & Communications                                             
Date: 18/12/2006 16:13:14 Supplied by www.sharenet.co.za                     
Produced by the JSE SENS Department.