Significant Drilling Results at Salinbas

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 a further set of results from the ongoing drilling programme at Salinbas. The project is operated via 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. Results from Ardala and Hizarliyayla will be announced separately when assay results are received.

Highlights:

• Successful completion of resource drilling within the upper Salinbas area.
• Completion of 5,928.8 metres, for 61 diamond holes since January 2023.
• 2,006 samples for 1,744.5 metres of drill core still pending for assay analysis at the Kiziltepe Mine Laboratory (incl. QA/QC samples).
• Key intercepts from the latest batch of results include:
• SALH093: 7.2m @ 9.37g/t Au + 19.6g/t Ag - from 86.2 metres

including 1.4m @ 35.02g/t Au + 69.8g/t Ag - from 88.7 metres

• SALH092: 6.5m @ 3.69g/t Au + 4.4g/t Ag - from 108.1 metres
• SALH102: 11.05m @ 1.56g/t Au + 11.8g/t Ag - from 85.35 metres
• Kerim Sener, Managing Director, commented:

"This is yet another great set of results from the Salinbas Project. Importantly, wide zones of high-to-moderate grade mineralisation are defined in a number of areas. Over 37,000 metres of drilling has now been undertaken in the wider Salinbas Project area, inclusive of Salinbas and Ardala, but also including the recent discovery area of Hizarliyayla to the south.

"Almost 40% of this drilling has been undertaken in the past two years alone, following the injection of US$8million into the project by Ozaltin Holding A.S. in 2021. The substantial acceleration of the project since then has now yielded the longest mineralised intercept ever recorded on the project at Ardala, the discovery of a potentially significant intermediate-sulphidation system at Hizarliyayla, and successful in-fill drilling results from the Salinbas deposit itself. These results collectively attest to the very high prospectivity of the region and continue to demonstrate that we remain at a very early stage in the overall development of this project area. We are confident that the broader Salinbas Project area represents the opportunity to build on the existing 1.5 million-ounce gold resource through further exploration and drilling.

"We are currently expecting to continue drilling at Salinbas over the winter, but this work will be weather dependent, and snow has already fallen earlier than expected in the region. In the meantime, we are awaiting receipt of additional data from several holes that were drilled in the area between Salinbas and Ardala.

"We are currently modelling the available results and will integrate these with our current understanding of the mineral system to aid future drill targeting and resource development work. In addition, we have recently initiated a deep induced polarization (IP)/Resistivity geophysical survey at Hizarliyayla, to better resolve potential drilling targets at depth. We expect to announce some of the initial results from this survey and the drilling undertaken there in recent times within the coming months."

Salinbas Drilling Programme

The following drilling update comprises the latest information from the Salinbas Project, not including Ardala and Hizarliyayla. The ongoing programme has remained active since late 2021, with the occasional break for bad weather and inaccessibility issues. The previous results for drilling undertaken largely during 2022 were announced on 25 January 2023. Results from H1 2023 were announced on 19 June 2023. This release aims to provide an update on drilling activities conducted on the project between June and October 2023.

The Salinbas Project, comprising the mineralisation encountered at Salinbas and Ardala, is located in north-eastern Turkey within the multi-million-ounce Artvin Goldfield. Drilling was focused in the Ardala area and on the zone between Ardala and Salinbas (AS Zone) since November 2021 (Figure 1), with the focus shifting to the Salinbas area for 2023, following the receipt of the necessary forestry permits. Across the project (including Ardala) a total of 13,921.7 metres has been drilled to date for 101 HQ diamond drill holes, with the top of the hole drilled in PQ due to a thick colluvium layer. Within this total, 5,928.8 metres for 61 holes were drilled at Salinbas.

Two drill rigs have been operating simultaneously across Salinbas-Ardala and one at Hizarliyayla, with the focus shifting to the Salinbas area more recently. The average depth of drilling at Salinbas has been approximately 90 metres, with a minimum depth of 20 metres and a maximum depth of 205 metres. The majority of drilling completed to date at Salinbas has been drilled vertically, with 8 holes angled at between 45 and 70 degrees.

Figure 1: Map showing the completed (green) and planned (blue) drillhole collar positions for the Salinbas Project. The AS Zone corresponds broadly to the eastern half of the area outlined in yellow which sits within the Ardala licence, closest to the Ardala Porphyry Complex.

The ongoing drilling programme at Salinbas has two primary objectives: Continue exploration step-out drilling and complete the first phase of resource infill drilling. Each of these objectives was discussed in further detail in the announcement of 19 June 2023. The focus of this release is to primarily discuss the progress of resource infill drilling completed within the Salinbas area.

Since January 2023, the Zenit team has completed 5,928.8 metres of resource infill drilling within the Salinbas area, for 61 new diamond holes. These drilling results add significant confidence to the existing resources, and allowing sufficient resolution to potentially upgrade the Resource Classification in areas which are currently classified as Inferred resources (Figure 2). Early results of this drilling (SALH076 - SALH090) were initially announced on 19 June 2023, and include:

• SALH087: 12.8m @ 1.34g/t Au + 3.3g/t Ag - from surface
• SALH077: 10.7m @ 1.19g/t Au + 16.5g/t Ag - from 82 metres
• SALH090: 3.5m @ 1.28g/t Au + 160.6g/t Ag - from 63.8 metres

The new results include the following 5 best intercepts, with the full list provided in Table 1:

SALH093: 7.2m @ 9.37g/t Au + 19.6g/t Ag - from 86.2 metres

including 1.4m @ 35.02g/t Au + 69.8g/t Ag - from 88.7 metres

• SALH092: 6.5m @ 3.69g/t Au + 4.4g/t Ag - from 108.1 metres
• SALH102: 11.05m @ 1.56g/t Au + 11.8g/t Ag - from 85.35 metres
• SALH099A: 13.2m @ 0.97g/t Au + 12.9g/t Ag - from 115.6 metres
• SALH100: 5.45M @ 2.18g/t Au + 38.0g/t Ag - from 52.95 metres

An additional 2,005 samples for 1,744.5 metres of drill core from Salinbas are pending submission to the Kiziltepe Mine Laboratory for analysis.

Figure 2: Key intercepts shown on SW-NE cross section (looking NW) through the Salinbas area with mineralisation outlines shown in red. The 2023 drilling is identified by green collars.

All historic drilling, up to and inclusive of 2019 has defined the current JORC Measured, Indicated and Inferred Resource of 1.5 million ounces of gold (as announced on 30 July 2020) split between the high-grade Salinbas deposit and the lower-grade, high-tonnage Ardala Porphyry Complex. To date, 37,193.8 metres of drilling has been completed across 240 holes at Salinbas and Ardala.

Table 1: Significant gold and silver only intercepts calculated for all 2023 drilling to date, using a 0.5g/t Au minimum cut-off and allowing for up to one metre internal dilution. Intercepts calculated using KML data and supported by external laboratory results. Results shaded grey were previously announced on 19 June 2023.

Samples extracted from the Salinbas Project have been sent periodically in batches to the Kiziltepe Mine Laboratory ("KML") for analysis. This has resulted in temporary delays and backlogs of pending samples for the Salinbas Project as a whole. The requirement to introduce the Salinbas samples slowly was undertaken to mitigate high sample flow from other higher priority projects and to allow for sufficient calibration and testing of new instruments introduced to the mine laboratory through an expansion completed during 2021. The day-to-day operational samples from the Kiziltepe Mine, as well as the significant ongoing flow of samples from the development work underway at the Tavsan Project has also taken priority over the Salinbas analyses.

Litho-geochemical Review

Project wide geological studies continue within the scope of the current drilling programme in the Ardala and Salinbas areas. A geochemical review was carried out with the recent results from the core samples obtained from drilling. Geological units in the region were defined as litho-geochemical facies by using various machine learning algorithms such as PCA, SOM and clustering to cover every element in the geochemical analyses of the samples. Following the application of these algorithmic routines, nine litho-geochemical units were identified in the region and different zones of mineralisation were defined (Figure 3). As a result of further detailed studies in the mineralisation zones, element-based sub-zones of mineralisation were determined.

Figure 3: Simplified results of litho-geochemical study shown on SW-NE cross section (looking NW) through the Salinbas Project with potential mineralisation shown in red on drill strings, and previously modelled mineralisation shown in pink.

Sampling and Assaying Procedures

All diamond drill core is currently being processed at the Ardanuc depo facility in Artvin and analysed at the Kiziltepe Mine Laboratory ("KML"). Results are assessed systematically and are grouped according to individual mineralised zones at the Salinbas Project.

HQ-size drill-core samples from the drilling programme at Salinbas and Ardala were cut in half by a diamond saw and sent for analysis in batches in line with the Company's quality control procedures. Core recovery for all drilling conducted at Salinbas during this campaign was 82%.

To date, a total of 2,098 sample results for 2,290.9m of sampled drill core have been returned from the KML (plus 530 QA/QC samples). So far, 7% of all analysed samples have also been analysed by ALS Global in Izmir as an external laboratory check as part of the QA/QC procedures used for the project, with a 10% check rate to be achieved by the end of the drilling programme. Results are pending for a further 2,006 samples (including 424 QA/QC samples).

QA/QC sample insertion rates vary depending on the batch size accepted by the laboratory. Ariana sampling protocol requires the insertion of 4 QA/QC samples per batch including 1 blank, 1 CRM, 1 field duplicate and 1 pulp duplicate to assess the accuracy and precision of all stages of the sampling and analysis. During the 2021-2023 drilling, Zenit QA/QC protocol required 1 blank, 1 CRM, 1 field duplicate, 1 pulp duplicate and over 10% samples analysed at an external laboratory. The Zenit QA/QC protocol is under review by both Ariana and Zenit teams following the laboratory upgrade.

The KML has undergone an extensive expansion to meet the significant demands for sample assaying, from both the mining and exploration teams. This expansion is complete with the onsite laboratory, now housing seven furnaces, two ICP-OES instruments, two Atomic Absorption spectrometers (AAS), three drying ovens, three crushers and three pulverisers. The laboratory upgrades have allowed for a doubling of sampling throughput (70 samples per day to 135). The two major upgrades for 2021 included the addition of 1) a multi-element ICP-OES (Perkin Elmer Avio 550) analyser, and 2) an Elementrac CS-I sulphur-carbon analyser. The ICP-OES provides the team with a full suite of elements on selected samples (as opposed to just gold and silver).

However, new operating procedures are currently being internally reviewed and calibrations of the new instruments are being assessed. As part of this, the laboratory team are sending in excess of 10% of their crushed rejects from selected drill core samples to ALS Global in Izmir for check assays, with c.7% of the Salinbas samples also analysed at ALS. Zenit's internal QA/QC data and sample duplicates have been reviewed and are considered approved for Ariana's reporting purposes. In addition, since October 2022 KML has been accredited by the Turkish Accreditation Agency (TÜRKAK) with "TS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2017 General Requirements for the Competence of Experimental and Calibration Laboratory".