AAU Ariana Resources Plc

18 November 2015

AIM: AAU

ARIANA RESOURCES PLC

KIZILCUKUR PROJECT RECEIVES MINING PERMIT

Ariana Resources plc ("Ariana" or "the Company"), is pleased to announce that it has received its mining permit for the Kizilcukur Project, which is located approximately 22km to the northeast of its Kiziltepe Mine.  Kizilcukur is located outside of the Red Rabbit joint venture with Proccea Construction Co. and is 100% owned by Ariana. 

Highlights:

·     51 hectare Mining Permit for gold and silver secured for the Kizilcukur Project.

·     Mining licence granted expires on the 24^th September 2022, with the possibility for extension.

·     Land access and forestry permits already in place for exploration.

·     Drilling on the project is now complete and sampling is ongoing. 

Dr. Kerim Sener, Managing Director, commented: 

"We are very pleased to have received our mining permit for the Kizilcukur Project, particularly while we have been in the process of completing our recent drilling and sampling programme.  Receipt of this permit will enable the Company to complete trial mining on the Project, as we look towards defining a potentially mineable satellite resource for our Kiziltepe operation.  The identification of satellite resources to the Kiziltepe Mine is an important part of our strategy to extend the life of mine and to provide options within our mining schedule." 

Details of the Kizilcukur Project

The Kizilcukur Project consists of one licence located in the Balikesir Province in Western Turkey (coordinates: 626150 m E; 4360440 m N).  The property lies 22km to the northeast (straight line) and 50km by road from the Kiziltepe Sector of the Company's Red Rabbit Project.  A royalty will be payable to Dogu Akdeniz Mineralleri San. ve Tic. Ltd. of 2% Net Smelter Return on commercial production from the Project.

The Project covers an area containing a series of sub-parallel quartz veins hosted by ophiolitic units that trend northwest and extend for at least two kilometres.  The main vein exhibits classic low-sulphidation epithermal features and attains a maximum true width of 8m.  The western quartz vein extends over a strike length of 800m.  Composite rock chip sampling of 80m strike along this quartz vein returned encouraging assay results of 6m at 3.3 g/t gold, 2m at 9.6g/t gold and 1m at 7.2 g/t gold.  The peak rock-chip assay result in this area was 152 g/t gold and 1,320 g/t silver. 

A JORC Inferred resource of 162,000 tonnes @ 2.39 g/t gold and 48.5 g/t silver has already been established at Kizilcukur based on 17 historic drill holes, as announced by the Company on 29 October 2013.  The current drilling programme was designed to test the near-surface resource potential along strike of the areas previously tested by drilling.  A total of 1,598m of new Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling have now been completed in this area and rock-saw channel sampling is in the process of being completed over the veins. 

Contacts:

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 selected on the basis of its in-house geological and remote-sensing database, on its own in western Turkey and in Joint Venture with Eldorado Gold Corporation in north-eastern Turkey.  Eldorado owns 51% of this joint venture and are fully funding all exploration work on the JV properties, while Ariana owns 49%.  The total resource inventory within this JV is 1.09 million ounces of gold.

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, are presently being assessed as to their economic merits and now form part of a Joint Venture with Proccea Construction Co.  The total resource inventory at the Red Rabbit Project stands at 475,000 ounces of gold equivalent. 

Beaufort Securities Limited and Loeb Aron & Company Ltd. 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:

"g/t" grams per tonne

"JORC" the Joint Ore Reserves Committee

"m" Metres

"oz" Ounces

Ends