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Re: News Releases - Monday, January 14, 2008
KIZILTEPE DRILLING AND BUSINESS UPDATE
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14 January 2008
AIM / PLUS Markets: AAU

KIZILTEPE DRILLING AND BUSINESS UPDATE

Ariana Resources plc ("Ariana" or "the Company"), the gold
exploration company focused on Turkey, is pleased to announce that
the new drilling programme at Kiziltepe on the Arzu South and North
veins has commenced and is expected to be concluded by March 2008.

Highlights


* New drilling programme underway at Kiziltepe



* Diamond drill-rig ordered; in-house drilling team to be
established



* Opportunity search and new exploration underway



Drilling Programme

A 2,500m Diamond drilling programme has commenced on schedule at the
Kiziltepe prospect. This additional programme is part of the
resource definition work, which began in September 2007, and follows
on from our successful RC-drilling programme at Kiziltepe late last
year. The aim of this programme is to provide greater confidence in
the mineral resource estimate to 50m vertical depth, as this portion
of the resource is most likely accessible by open-pit.

A summary of the main drilling intersections reported previously for
the Arzu South Vein at the Kiziltepe prospect are listed in the
appendix below.

Other Activities

Ariana's operating subsidiary, Galata Madencilik San. ve Tic. Ltd.,
has recently concluded an agreement to purchase a Diamond drilling
rig for delivery to Turkey in May 2008. In conjunction with this,
the Company is in the process of establishing its own drilling and
geological evaluation team. The in-house drilling team will allow
the Company to drill at any time of the year and will provide
increased flexibility to test new targets on Ariana's own projects or
those of potential joint venture partners. The drilling rig will
provide pay-back within one year, based on our planned drilling for
2008.

Following a complete desk-review of exploration opportunities in
Turkey, a new exploration programme is to commence in the Spring to
further develop the pipeline of drill-ready exploration
opportunities. The new drill-rig will be utilised to systematically
test the existing prospects and any new drill targets that are
identified and secured following the desk-review.

Dr. Kerim Sener, Managing Director, commented:

"Results from previously reported drill intersections, such as 8.9m
at 10.7 g/t and 6.6m at 15.5 g/t gold equivalent, underpin our
confidence in the Kiziltepe vein system to provide a near-surface,
high-grade gold-silver resource, which may be mined by open-pit.

"The results from the ongoing drilling programme at the Kiziltepe
prospect continue to confirm our expectation that the Sindirgi
Project will yield an economic gold resource, and the current
drilling programme has been designed to increase our confidence in
the top 50m of the deposit. This data will allow us to develop a
robust open pit model.

"An in-house drilling team will enable us to grow the Company through
further resource definition work at the Sindirgi Project as well as
at other sites of interest.

"2008 promises to be an important year for the Company's progress
towards becoming a gold producer in Turkey."


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 | |
|----------------------------------+--------------------|
| | |
|----------------------------------+--------------------|
| Loeb Aron & Company Limited | Tel: 020 7628 1128 |
|----------------------------------+--------------------|
| Peter Freeman / Frank Lucas | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

APPENDIX

Summary of Best Intersections

The following are a subset of best intersections (in gold equivalent)
provided by the Arzu South Vein, from north to south, 6.7m @ 7.4 g/t,
8.9m @ 10.7 g/t, 6.6m @ 15.5 g/t, 6.3m @ 8.7 g/t, 10.0m @ 6.3 g/t and
5.0m @ 20.1 g/t. All intersections greater than 3m in length and
showing a gold grade greater than 2 g/t have been tabulated for the
Arzu South Vein in Table 1 below.

The presence of several shallow, wide and high grade intersections
along more than 600m of vein strike length demonstrate the potential
for this vein to yield an open-pittable resource. Other veins in the
vicinity of Arzu South are expected to add to the global resource at
the Kiziltepe prospect. Several additional veins have been tested by
Diamond and RC drilling, but it is expected that more drilling is
required before these are included in a resource estimate.

Table 1: Summary of best drill hole intersections from the Arzu South
Vein (including historic data).


Apparent Width Gold (Au Silver Au + Au
Hole From (m) To (m) (m) g/t) (Ag g/t) equiv.
(g/t)
NORTHERN SECTION
D02-06 50.00 56.00 6.00 2.77 19.94 3.16
And 63.80 68.80 5.00 2.60 80.69 4.21
KT11a 95.70 103.20 7.50 2.85 61.34 4.08
KT06 34.50 45.00 10.50 3.00 24.68 3.50
And 46.50 49.50 3.00 7.72 6.84 7.86
D03A-06 51.45 58.10 6.65 6.18 61.53 7.41
RC01-07 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
D04A-06 42.60 49.00 6.40 5.96 155.51 9.07
And 50.00 57.20 7.20 2.52 102.88 4.57
D05A-06 47.85 51.80 3.95 8.29 182.35 11.93
KT04 67.50 71.40 3.90 2.47 56.91 3.60
RSC8 43.50 52.50 9.00 9.01 106.28 11.14
D06A-06 40.40 43.40 3.00 3.09 76.07 4.61
D07A-06 42.90 51.80 8.90 8.50 111.25 10.73
D07B-06 81.00 95.50 14.50 2.19 31.29 2.82
KT01 59.10 68.05 8.95 3.42 47.59 4.37
RSC6 27.00 34.00 7.00 9.13 72.21 10.57
D08B-06 56.00 62.60 6.60 13.06 121.67 15.49
And 72.50 78.70 6.20 5.72 83.47 7.39
KT03 76.30 89.40 13.10 5.84 70.84 7.26
RC02-07 27.00 30.00 3.00 6.15 83.43 7.82
RC03-07 27.00 31.00 4.00 10.12 131.20 12.74
KT02 61.95 67.45 5.50 6.84 93.39 8.71
D10A-06 32.60 38.90 6.30 6.52 110.95 8.74
SOUTHERN SECTION
RC12-07 57.00 67.00 10.00 4.72 81.01 6.34
D11-06 38.50 42.50 4.00 8.87 245.25 13.77
RC04-07 52.00 55.00 3.00 2.61 87.33 4.36
RC05-07 58.00 64.00 6.00 6.62 167.97 9.98
D12-06 59.80 64.70 4.90 7.71 124.78 10.21
RC06-07 44.00 49.00 5.00 13.62 322.06 20.06
KT10 73.80 80.90 7.10 4.77 128.78 7.34
RC15-07 88.00 94.00 6.00 3.14 66.73 4.48
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


All samples from the drilling programmes undertaken by Ariana 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.
Laboratory sample preparation, assaying procedures and chain of
custody are appropriately controlled. The Company maintains an
archive of half HQ-sized Diamond drill core and reference RC chip
samples, in addition to all sample pulps and splits.

Editors' note:

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.

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
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 selected on the basis of its advanced in-house
remote sensing database.

The Company's flagship asset is the 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, King & Shaxson Capital Limited and
Loeb Aron & Company 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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Copyright (c) 2008 ARIANA RESOURCES PLC (AAU) All rights reserved.
For more information visit our website at
http://www.arianaresources.com/ or send mailto:info@arianaresources.com
Message sent on Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 2:11:55 AM Pacific Time
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