3 December 2007
AIM / PLUS Markets: AAU
RC DRILLING RESULTS FROM KIZILTEPE GOLD PROSPECT
Ariana Resources plc ("Ariana" or "the Company"), the gold
exploration company focused on Turkey, announces the results from 14
Reverse Circulation (RC) drill holes completed on the Arzu South Vein
at the Kiziltepe gold prospect. This drilling was focused primarily
on the middle and southern parts of the Arzu South system and was
designed to test for parallel mineralised veins at depth and along
strike of the main structure. The new results are consistent with
those contained by the existing mineral resource and confirm the
geological model compiled last year that showed a complex vein system
comprising multiple segments and mineralised shoots.
Highlights
* Intersections of 10.12 g/t Au over 4m, 13.62 g/t Au over 5m and
6.62 g/t Au over 6m
* 2,500m of additional drilling to commence at Arzu South and North
for resource estimation
* Results pending on silver grades
Dr. Kerim Sener, Managing Director, commented:
"We are encouraged with the results of the latest drilling on the
Arzu South Vein and are looking forward to finalising the current
drilling programme so that we may complete our planned revision of
the 2007 resource estimate. We are also aiming to determine our
options for the further development of the Kiziltepe prospect, in
particular, the optimal mining and processing route for a relatively
high-grade, low tonnage near surface resource.
"Drilling at the Kiziltepe prospect is due to start up again in
December, according to a revised drill plan that has been compiled in
conjunction with work that we finalised last week with our
consultants, SRK. The aim of this programme will be to establish
higher confidence in the resource to 50m vertical depth that will
result in an upgraded resource estimate. We expect to complete our
drilling programme during the first quarter of 2008 and aim to
announce further results prior to the resource update."
Details of Programme
A field team from the Company's Turkish operating subsidiary, Galata
Madencilik San. ve Tic. Ltd. Sti., supervised the completion of 14 RC
drill holes (114.3 mm diameter) on the Arzu South Vein. The holes
reported in this release totalled 1,298m. They were drilled to
depths of between 60 and 135 metres and angled at 60-70 degrees along
a 650m section of vein strike length. Quartz veins, other
mineralised structures and stockwork were located in all 14 holes
drilled in this programme. Due to delays in sample processing and
assay turnaround, not all gold and silver data has been returned from
the laboratory for this programme and any significant changes to the
data reported here will be announced in due course. Selected
intersections are given in Table 1 below.
Table 1: RC drill hole intersection data from the Arzu South Vein:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | | | | | Apparent Width | Gold | Silver |Au + Au|
| Hole |Easting |Northing |From (m) |To (m) | (m) | (Au |(Ag g/t)|equiv. |
| | | | | | | g/t) | | (g/t) |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| NORTHERN SECTION |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|RC01-07 | 607767 | 4348842 | 61.00 | 62.00 | 1.00 | 1.81 | 44.30 | 2.70 |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|And | | | 66.00 | 69.00 | 3.00 | 2.09 | 64.63 | 3.38 |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|And | | | 71.00 | 76.00 | 5.00 | 2.27 | 85.56 | 3.98 |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| MIDDLE SECTION |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|RC02-07 | 607950 | 4348624 | 27.00 | 30.00 | 3.00 | 6.15 | 83.43 | 7.82 |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|RC03-07 | 607990 | 4348582 | 27.00 | 31.00 | 4.00 |10.12 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|And | | | 35.00 | 39.00 | 4.00 | 1.16 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|And | | | 40.00 | 41.00 | 1.00 | 4.19 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|And | | | 43.00 | 44.00 | 1.00 | 2.07 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|RC11-07 | 608042 | 4348591 | 97.00 | 98.00 | 1.00 | 0.99 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|And | | | 101.00 |104.00 | 3.00 | 0.86 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|RC12-07 | 608033 | 4348538 | 30.00 | 33.00 | 3.00 | 0.98 |Pending | - |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| SOUTHERN SECTION |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|RC04-07 | 608048 | 4348506 | 52.00 | 55.00 | 3.00 | 2.61 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|And | | | 72.00 | 75.00 | 3.00 | 1.65 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|RC05-07 | 608036 | 4348463 | 58.00 | 64.00 | 6.00 | 6.62 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|RC06-07 | 608045 | 4348405 | 44.00 | 49.00 | 5.00 |13.62 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------|
|RC07-07 | 608062 | 4348352 |No significant result |
|--------+--------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------|
|RC08-07 | 608048 | 4348308 | 33.00 | 34.00 | 1.00 | 2.45 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|RC13-07 | 608069 | 4348488 | 93.00 | 97.00 | 4.00 | 1.41 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|RC14-07 | 608087 | 4348404 | 92.00 | 95.00 | 3.00 | 1.28 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|RC15-07 | 608088 | 4348375 | 80.00 | 83.00 | 3.00 | 2.05 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+---------+-------+----------------+------+--------+-------|
|And | | | 88.00 | 94.00 | 6.00 | 3.14 |Pending | - |
|--------+--------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------|
|RC09-07 | 608044 | 4348278 |No significant result |
|--------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|RC10-07 |Cancelled |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Notes: |
|No top cut has been applied to assay results |
|Intersections based on a 0.5 g/t cut off grade |
|Weighted averages have been calculated for core recovery and gold/silver grades |
|Au + Au equiv. g/t is the sum of the gold grade and the gold equivalent grade of |
|silver based on a gold/silver price ratio of approximately 1:50 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Sampling and Assaying Procedures
To date 316 RC chip samples from the drilling programme on the Arzu
Vein were sent for assay. Of these 72 have not yet had assays
returned (23% of the total), 170 samples have returned grades of less
than 0.5 g/t Au (54% of the total), 29 samples between 0.5-1 g/t Au
(9% of total), 33 between 1-5 g/t Au (10% of total) and 12 samples
above 5 g/t Au (4% of total), with the peak grade at 43.8 g/t Au.
Sample recovery averaged 85% in the mineralised zones.
All samples have been prepared by the ALS Chemex preparation facility
in Izmir and assayed by 30g fire assay at the ALS Chemex laboratory
in Romania. Routine re-assaying of all samples assaying greater than
10 g/t Au and 100 g/t Ag has also been completed by ALS Chemex.
Standard, blank and duplicate samples are being used in the sample
batches, which is in line with the Company's quality control
procedures. Quality control checks have determined the integrity of
the results and initial statistical correlations with drill-core
samples has shown that there is no significant bias in the RC
drilling data. Laboratory sample preparation, assaying procedures
and chain of custody are appropriately controlled. The Company
maintains an archive of RC chip samples and all pulps and sample
splits for future reference.
Contacts:
Ariana Resources plc Tel: 020 7407 3616
Michael Spriggs, Chairman
Kerim Sener, Managing Director
Beaumont Cornish Limited Tel: 020 7628 3396
Roland Cornish
Bankside Consultants Tel: 020 7367 8888
Michael Padley / Louise Davis
City Capital Corporation Limited Tel: 020 7842 5867
Charles Dampney
King & Shaxson Capital Limited Tel: 020 7426 5986
Nick Bealer
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 Southern Africa and Australia. He
has read and approved the technical disclosure in this regulatory
announcement.
Editors' note:
About the Kiziltepe prospect
The Kiziltepe prospect is located within a ten-year renewable
operating licence that forms part of the Company's 100% owned 235km2
Sindirgi gold project in Balikesir Province, western Turkey.
Kiziltepe lies approximately 100km east of the one million ounce
vein-hosted Ovacik gold mine and 115km northwest of the five million
ounce Kisladag gold mine. The prospect hosts over 20km in strike
length of gold-silver bearing low-sulphidation epithermal quartz
veins across an area of at least 3km by 1km. Individual veins are
exposed for up to 700m and widths vary between 1m and 14m. The main
veins trend northwest, dip to the northeast and are hosted within
Miocene age dacitic volcanic rocks.
Ariana acquired the Sindirgi Gold Project from Newmont Mining
Corporation (NYSE & ASX: NEM; TSX: NMC) in March 2005. Newmont
retains the right to a royalty of up to 2.5% on future gold
production from the Sindirgi gold project.
Ahead of commencing the drilling programme, Ariana obtained all
necessary environmental and forestry approvals from the provincial
government in Balikesir and the State Government in Ankara.
About Ariana Resources
Ariana is a dynamic exploration company focused on the discovery and
development of epithermal gold-silver and porphyry copper-gold
deposits with multi-million ounce potential within the Tethyan
metallogenic belt of Turkey. The Company has a portfolio of
prospective licences covering 1,820km2, selected on the basis of its
advanced in-house remote sensing database.
The Company's flagship asset is the 235km2 Sindirgi Gold Project,
which targets a series of prospects, within a prolific mineralised
district in western Turkey. The project hosts over 45km of
gold-silver bearing epithermal quartz veins.
City Capital Corporation Limited and King & Shaxson Capital 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.
Ends
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