Ariana Resources (AIM: AAU)

Announced an update to its JORC Resource Estimate for the Tavsan Mine.

The mine is currently in construction and being operated by Zenit Madencilik San. ve Tic. A.S. in partnership with Proccea Construction Co. and Ozaltin Holding A.S. and is 23.5% owned by Ariana.

Ariana Resources	AIM: AAU
Stage	Production, development, exploration
Metals	Gold, copper
Market cap	£32.9 million @ 3p
Location	Turkey, Cyprus, Kosovo

Ariana Resources – Tavsan Gold Project, Turkey

29 November 2022

AIM: AAU

Ariana Resources Report Increase in Tavsan MRE

Ariana Resources plc (“Ariana” or the “Company”), the AIM-listed mineral exploration and development company with gold mining interests in Europe, is pleased to announce an update to its JORC Resource Estimate for the Tavsan Mine.

The mine is currently in construction and being operated by Zenit Madencilik San. ve Tic. A.S. (“Zenit”) in partnership with Proccea Construction Co. and Ozaltin Holding A.S. and is 23.5% owned by Ariana.

Highlights:

· Global Resource increased by 22% over the previous Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) to 6.6 Mt at 1.44 g/t Au and 5.26 g/t Ag for 307,000 oz Au and 1.1 million oz Ag (all categories)*.

· High-grade domain of 1.1 Mt at 2.74 g/t Au and 4.89 g/t Ag for 96,000 oz Au and 171,000 oz Ag (all categories)* is defined for the first time.

· Significant additional potential of 1.7Mt of below cut-off grade material occurs in the 0.5 to 0.7 g/t Au range for c.34,000 oz Au (not currently classified as Resources)*.

· Resource is further de-risked with 83% now classified in the Measured & Indicated JORC Resource categories.

· Exploration targets previously defined in the East and South zones are being assessed and up to 4,600m of drilling is currently underway to test resource extensions; resource is not closed-off in several areas.

*All Mineral Resource figures are quoted gross with respect to Zenit of which Ariana owns 23.5%.

Dr. Kerim Sener, Managing Director, commented:

“This MRE represents a tremendous enhancement for Tavsan, as construction continues on site. Not only has the total resource grown to c.7 Mt but about 1 Mt of this is now attributed to a newly defined high-grade domain containing sufficient resources to potentially satisfy up to three years of gold output in its own right.

“This is all the more impressive considering that the 2016 Scoping Study had only considered a total mine life of four years from the entire resource. Current planning is consequently focusing on a mine life of eight years.

“When we acquired the project in 2008, we did so with the expectation that the resource could grow to this scale. Now that we have achieved this significant milestone, and after having completed additional work, we see that there is further room for growing the resource. This is already apparent when considering the potential impact of a lower cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t, which could add a further 34,000 oz of gold to the resource currently, which could aid the further extension of mine life.

“This resource estimate will be updated again in 2023 following the conclusion of a new drilling programme which commenced a couple of weeks ago and is continuing to test for further resource extensions. The current resource estimate will now be used to update our financial models and mine optimisations, which we are aiming to complete and announce as our Definitive Feasibility Study in due course.

“Tavsan represents our most significantly de-risked project after Kiziltepe, which contains resources now larger than those remaining at our operating mine. As a result, Tavsan is expected to become a more significant operation than Kiziltepe in the coming years.”

To read the full news release, please click HERE

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