Ariana Resources plc : First Drilling Results from

6 February 2017 AIM: AAU

FIRST DRILLING RESULTS FROM KARAKAVAK

Ariana Resources plc ("Ariana" or "the Company"), the gold exploration and development company operating in Turkey, is pleased to announce results for its first drilling programme conducted at the Karakavak prospect, which is part of the Kiziltepe Sector.   Kiziltepe is part of the Red Rabbit Joint Venture with Proccea Construction Co. and will be 50% owned by Ariana once the mine is operational in Q1 2017. 

Highlights:

• Initial drilling at the Karakavak prospect demonstrates potential for a low strip-ratio open-pittable resource based on only 8% of the vein system tested to date.  
• A total strike of 180m of outcropping veins were tested with best intercepts including 4m @ 1.72g/t Au, 3m @ 1.11g/t Au and 3m @ 1.06g/t Au all from within about 10m from surface.  
• Vein orientation and geochemistry suggests development high in the epithermal system; potential to identify more steeply-dipping feeder structures.   
• A further 2,150m of gold-bearing outcropping veins still remain untested by drilling.

Dr. Kerim Sener, Managing Director, commented: 

"These encouraging initial results from the Karakavak prospect confirm the potential in this area for several shallow open-pittable resources as satellites to the Kiziltepe Mine operations.  The drilling has demonstrated that the vein systems have unusual orientations, dipping at approximately 35-45 degrees to the south and that they likely developed very high in the epithermal system.  In particular, this is demonstrated by the lack of silver and the occurrence in this area of higher concentrations of metals typically associated with the uppermost parts of such systems.

Trial mining at this location will proceed on the basis of this new data and we will aim to permit several other areas across the Karakavak prospect in order to conduct further work.  An open-pittable resource target has been established in this area to guide our strategy for further exploration and development.  We are confident that, in time, Karakavak will meaningfully add to the mineable resources within the Kiziltepe Sector." 

Drilling Programme

The Karakavak prospect was drill tested as part of the 2016 Phase Two drilling programme, which was initiated in late October.  The drilling was carried out by Spektra Jeotek San. ve Tic. A.S. supervised by the Ariana exploration team and team members from Ariana's Turkish subsidiary, Galata Madencilik San. ve Tic. Ltd. ("Galata").  One objective for the Phase Two programme was to drill test two easily accessible and previously permitted locations on the Karakavak Main and Karakavak South vein systems.  A total of 464m of Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling was completed within the Karakavak prospect of the Kiziltepe Sector (Table 1).

The Karakavak prospect is located approximately 10km northeast of the Kiziltepe mine site, which is accessed by 27km of well-maintained asphalt and forestry roads (Figure 1).  Drilling commenced at Karakavak Main in late October 2016 and a total of 362m was drilled for 10 RC holes. All drilling was undertaken at easily accessible locations where the Company had previously completed trial mining of surface material.  Historic channel samples of exposed vein from the trail mining area of Karakavak Main returned grades including 1m @ 1.94 g/t Au, 1m @ 1.48 g/t Au and 1m @ 1.22m g/t Au.

Sectional and scissor orientated drill holes at Karakavak Main revealed that the vein system dips gently at about 35 degrees to the south, which is very different to the vein orientations at Kiziltepe, which are near vertical.  This geometry made it difficult for the team to position the drill rig within current permit areas to target the vein system at greater depths.  The gentle dip to the south of the veins is sub-parallel to the topography on the southern flank of Ulus Mountain, which bodes well for a low strip-ratio open pittable resource at this location. Permitting for future work is now being planned to further test anomalous strike extensions of the Karakavak Main vein.

The next area tested was Karakavak South, approximately 3km southwest of Karakavak Main. At this location the team drilled tested a further 100m of outcropping vein strike for a total of 102m over four holes, testing a relatively continuous 3m wide massive crystalline and colloform banded vein at 50 to 25m collar separation. Historic surface rock-chip results from the Karakavak South vein system include 20.80 g/t Au + 33.5 g/t Ag, 2.45 g/t Au + 22.1 g/t Ag and 2.26 g/t Au + 1.9 g/t Ag.    

Drilling results from Karakavak South identified a dip of 45 degrees to the south on the vein system.  Difficulties in positioning the drill rig to intercept the mineralisation at an appropriate angle resulted in the programme ending early at Karakavak South. One successful drill hole (KRK-RC12-16), was able intercept mineralisation and reported 3m @ 1.11g/t Au.

The results of the Karakavak drilling has allowed the Ariana team to better understand the geometry of mineralisation at both Karakavak Main and Karakavak South.  The Company will now assess and permit new locations to better access the vein system for future drilling programmes.  To date, a total 180m out of 2,330m (<8%), of geochemically anomalous quartz veins at Karakavak have been drill tested.

Table 1:   Significant RC drilling results from the 2016 programme at Karakavak, arranged in order of the gram x metre intercepts (down-hole gold equivalent grade multiplied by intercept thickness).  The intercepts reported in this table are the down-hole lengths.  Intercept grades have been calculated using a 0.5 g/t Au minimum cut-off with up to 2m internal waste allowed. 

Figure 1 below: shows map of the Kiziltepe Sector of the Red Rabbit JV showing the position of major gold-silver prospects and proposed trucking routes from satellite mines to the primary Kiziltepe Mine operations.  The Karakavak area has been drill-tested only partially between Karakavak Main and South.

Sampling and Assaying Procedures

139 samples were selected based on geological logging of RC chips during drilling and sent for assay. All samples from the drilling programme undertaken by Ariana Resources plc, were prepared and assayed by 30g fire assay, and ICP-MS multi-element analysis, at the ALS Global laboratory in Izmir.  Routine re-assaying of all samples assaying greater than 10 g/t of gold and 100 g/t of silver has also been completed by ALS Global.  Standard, blank and duplicate samples are being used in the sample batches, which is in line with the Company's quality control procedures.  Laboratory sample preparation, assaying procedures and chain of custody are appropriately controlled.  The Company maintains an archive of reference RC chip samples, in addition to all sample pulps and splits.

Contacts:

Editor's Notes:

Dr Kerim Sener, BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, is the Managing Director of Ariana Resources plc.  A graduate of the University of Southampton in Geology, he also holds a Master's degree from the Royal School of Mines (Imperial College, London) in Mineral Exploration and a doctorate from the University of Western Australia.  He is a Fellow of The Geological Society of London and has worked in geological research and mineral consultancy in Africa, Australia and Europe.  He has read and approved the technical disclosure in this regulatory announcement. 

About Ariana Resources:

Ariana is an exploration and development company focused on epithermal gold-silver and porphyry copper-gold deposits in Turkey.  The Company is developing a portfolio of prospective licences originally selected on the basis of its in-house geological and remote-sensing database. 

The Company's flagship assets are its Kiziltepe and Tavsan gold projects which form the Red Rabbit Gold Project.  Both contain a series of prospects, within two prolific mineralised districts in the Western Anatolian Volcanic and Extensional (WAVE) Province in western Turkey.  This Province hosts the largest operating gold mines in Turkey and remains highly prospective for new porphyry and epithermal deposits.  These core projects, which are separated by a distance of 75km, form part of a 50:50 Joint Venture with Proccea Construction Co.  The Kiziltepe Sector of the Red Rabbit Project is fully-permitted and is currently in construction.  The total resource inventory at the Red Rabbit Project and wider project area stands at c. 525,000 ounces of gold equivalent.  At Kiziltepe a Net Smelter Return ("NSR") royalty of up to 2.5% on future production is payable to Franco-Nevada Corporation.  At Tavsan an NSR royalty of up to 2% on future production is payable to Sandstorm Gold.

In north-eastern Turkey, Ariana owns 100% of the Salinbas Gold Project, comprising the Salinbas gold-silver deposit and the Ardala copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry among other prospects.  The total resource inventory of the Salinbas project area is c. 1 million ounces of gold equivalent.  A NSR royalty of up to 2% on future production is payable to Eldorado Gold Corporation.

Beaufort Securities Limited and Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited are joint brokers to the Company and Beaumont Cornish Limited is the Company's Nominated Adviser. 

For further information on Ariana you are invited to visit the Company's website at www.arianaresources.com .

Glossary of Technical Terms:

"Ag" Silver

"Au" Gold

"g/t" grams per tonne

"m" Metres

"oz" Ounces

Ends

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