Positive Drilling Results

Ariana Resources PLC
08 January 2007



08 January 2007
AIM: AAU

         FURTHER POSITIVE DRILLING RESULTS FROM KIZILTEPE GOLD PROSPECT

Ariana Resources plc ('Ariana' or 'the Company'), the gold exploration company
focused on Turkey, announces the results from the first three drill holes
completed on the Banu Vein, at the Kiziltepe gold prospect. This represents the
fifth set of positive results on different veins within the Kiziltepe project,
that forms part of the Company's 100% owned 235km2 Sindirgi gold project in
western Turkey.

   •Intersections of 2.10 g/t Au over 4.8m, 2.09 g/t Au over 2.10m and
    4.62g/t Au over 2.0m
   •Significant silver grades from 64 g/t Ag to 159 g/t Ag boost gold
    equivalent grades
   •Results confirm that historical drilling was not orientated appropriately
    and that further drilling on this vein is warranted
   •Follow up drilling underway on the Arzu South vein for resource
    estimation

A field team from the Company's Turkish operating subsidiary, Galata Madencilik
San. ve Tic. Ltd. Sti., supervised the completion of an initial three-hole HQ
size (63.5 mm wide) diamond core drilling programme on the Banu Vein. The holes
D15, D16 and D17 reported in this release totalled 264.30m. They were drilled to
depths of between 70 and 100 metres and angled at 60 degrees along a 100m
section of vein strike length. Collars were located at approximately 50 metre
spaced centres. Quartz veins, other mineralised structures and stockwork were
located in all three holes drilled in this exploratory programme. Selected
intersections are given in Table 1 below.

Steven Poulton, Chief Executive, commented:

'We are encouraged by the results of this preliminary drilling on the Banu Vein,
which show robust gold and silver grades. The combined gold equivalent
intersections of 3.38 g/t Au over 4.8m, 4.33 g/t Au over 2.10m and 7.08 g/t Au
over 2.0m provide further assurance in the continuity of the mineralised system
and indicate that additional drilling is warranted. The results also support our
growing confidence in the potential of the Kiziltepe prospect as a whole. We are
pleased with the results from the first two veins we have drilled and, out of
the 15 major veins so far identified at the Kiziltepe prospect, there have been
very encouraging results from five of them.'

'Drilling at the Kiziltepe prospect is continuing. A series of deeper holes is
currently testing the potential plunge of a significant high grade zone, as
identified by our previously announced drilling results. Data from these holes
will be included in a future resource estimate on the Arzu South Vein. We look
forward to updating our shareholders when further results become available. 2006
was a year of considerable progress for the Company, with additional licence
areas acquired, several promising new prospects identified, and very positive
results from the initial drilling and sampling programmes at the Kiziltepe and
Kepez prospects.'

Table 1: Drill hole intersection data from the Banu Vein in addition to historic
data:

Hole          From    To    Recovery Apparent  Gold    Silver    Au + Au equiv.
              (m)     (m)     (%)    Width(m) (Au g/t) (Ag g/t)     (g/t)

KTP-D15-06    54.1    54.5    88      0.4      0.58     21.80        1.02
and           61.3    66.1    92      4.8      2.10     63.82        3.38
KTP-D16-06    40.4    42.5    89      2.1      2.09    112.10        4.33
KTP-D17-06    27.7    29.7    87      2.0      4.62    159.09        7.80
RSC05*        42.3    45.0    n/a     2.7      4.89     80.00        6.49

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
* RSC05 denotes the historical drill hole undertaken by Tuprag in 1992 - 
recovery was not reported
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

Banu Vein

The preliminary drilling programme on the Banu Vein was designed to demonstrate
that drilling by previous operators failed to intersect the main vein. Surface
trenching undertaken by Ariana indicated that the vein dips to the south-west,
requiring the drill holes reported in this release to be oriented toward the
north-east. The successful intersection of the vein in all three new drill holes
confirms that four historical holes, which were drilled towards the south-west,
were located in the footwall of, and sub-parallel to, the mineralised structure.
In addition, the new holes were designed to test a section of vein that had not
been sampled during the rock-saw programme, but which provided encouraging gold
grades from rock-chip sampling and also has the greatest density of historic
surface workings along strike.

The Banu Vein (strike length 750m) has the most uniform grade at surface of all
the veins at the Kiziltepe prospect. For 550m of surface sampled strike length,
the vein carries a fairly consistent grade of approximately 2-3 g/t Au. Evidence
from both the new and historical drilling indicates an improvement in grade at
depth and along strike to the southeast. A hole drilled by previous operators in
1992 (RSC05) in the south-eastern part of the vein provided an intersection of
4.89 g/t Au and 80 g/t Ag over 2.7m. The latest drilling by Ariana has confirmed
the improvement in the gold and silver grade. Follow-up drilling in this
south-eastern section of the Banu Vein is now warranted to confirm its potential
at depth.


Contacts:
Ariana Resources plc
Steven Poulton, Chief Executive                 Tel:    [phone]
[e-mail]                 Mobile: [phone]

Bankside Consultants
Michael Padley / Susan Scott                    Tel:    [phone]


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 19km 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 750m 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, Galata obtained all necessary
environmental and forestry approvals from the provincial government in Balikesir
and the State Government in Ankara.

Sampling and Assaying Procedures
To date 73 HQ size drill-core samples from the drilling programme on the Banu
Vein, ranging from 0.18m to 1.07m in length have been cut in half by a diamond
saw and sent for assay. Of these, 61 samples have returned grades of less than
0.5 g/t Au (83.5% of the total), 4 samples between 0.5-1 g/t Au (5.5% of total),
7 between 1-5 g/t Au (9.6% of total) and 1 sample above 5 g/t Au (1.4% of
total), grading 7.32 g/t Au. Sample recovery has averaged 89% 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 (no samples) and
100g/t Ag (6 samples) has also been completed by ALS Chemex. Standard, blank and
duplicate samples are being used in the sample batches in line with the
Company's quality control procedures. Quality control checks have determined
that all blanks and standards have passed and duplicate samples have shown
excellent correlations, with 99.9% correlation for crushed duplicates and 97.6%
correlation for pulp duplicates. Laboratory sample preparation, assaying
procedures and chain of custody are appropriately controlled. The Company
maintains an archive of half core samples and a photographic record of all cores
for future reference.

Dr Kerim Sener, BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, is Ariana's Exploration Director. 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 the Northern Territory of
Australia. He has read and approved the technical disclosure in this regulatory
announcement.

About Ariana Resources
Ariana is a dynamic exploration company focused on the discovery 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 1,755km2, 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. A
drilling programme is currently focussed on defining gold resources (in
compliance with the JORC code) at the prospects of Kiziltepe and Kepez.

Ambrian Partners 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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