Argentina back in Marianas spotlight

Mariana Resources capacity to actively work a high-quality, geographically diverse portfolio

of exploration and development properties over the past five years has left the company
with a wealth of opportunities outside the standout, 30%-owned Hot Maden gold-copper
project in Turkey. A key focus is again Argentina, where the company has shown much
prescience and patience.
Investor attention has justifiably been fixed on the high-grade Hot Maden project as
Marianas (AIM: MARL) shares have surged more than 270% since the start of the year,
elevating its market cap to about US$88 million.
But as the milestones have rapidly accrued in Turkey from the discovery hole in February,
2015, to maiden resource in August and then the recent striking update to 3.87 million oz
gold-equivalent indicated and inferred Mariana has been able to maintain its impressive
track record of generating and exploring prospects, even if much of this work has been out
of the spotlight.
The spotlight has burned bright: that discovery-hole intercept of a startling 103m grading
9gpt gold and 2.2% copper from 25m was followed quickly with an equally impressive 82m
grading 20.4gpt gold and 1.9% copper from 147m downhole. And so Hot Maden has
become a hot talking point.

Still, Glen Parsons, Mariana CEO, says gold and silver exploration in Argentina that built
shareholder value in the company long before Hot Maden lit up its name and share
price, is being reinvigorated as the country becomes a sought after LatAm exploration
address, and precious metal prices strengthen.
North American investors, in particular, are looking for avenues into Argentinas
resources sector as the countrys pro-mining government and foreign-investment
friendly political settings refocus attention on its undoubted mineral potential.

Our next most advanced asset is certainly in Argentina where, before the downturn,
Mariana had a significant market capitilisation based on Las Calandrias, Parsons says.

Our belief in a short- to mid-term repositioning of Argentina has paid off, and now
were pretty well positioned to take advantage of these positive changes.

We really are quite bullish on the country. Mariana has been operating in Argentina
since 2007 and as a result of our history and continuous activity there we are not
coming in cold as others are, indeed we are ahead of the pack. Las Calandrias was
Marianas flagship asset up until 2012 and is now being revisited in terms of both its
development potential especially the high grade La Calandria Norte vein/breccia
system, and the oxide portion of the bulk tonnage La Calandria Sur discovery as well
as the significant upside potential for the discovery of new high grade veins.

So it certainly warrants Mariana getting that value reinstated.

Indeed, the Las Calandrias dome-related epithermal system uncovered in 2009 has a
very handy 492,000oz indicated resource (519,000oz gold-equivalent total initial
resource) and further bulk-tonnage, openpit potential evident.
Further scout drilling around Las Calandrias, lost somewhat early last year as
uncertainty over Argentinas political landscape persisted and Marianas name became
indelibly linked to the spectacular drill results emerging at Hot Maden, only enhanced
the prospectivity.
The company has also generated promising early greenfields exploration results at
another 100%-owned property, Los Cisnes, which is located to the south of Las
Calandrias. Two main mineralisation styles are observed at Los Cisnes the high grade
silver-gold veins and breccias at El Brio, and the bulk tonnage rhyolite dome hosted
gold mineralisation at El Solar.

To the west, Mariana has an internal resource on Sierra Blanca and this presents as a
further opportunity worthy of ongoing assessment.

Weve got four project areas in Santa Cruz down in the southern part of Argentina,
Parsons says.

Las Calandrias is really like a district play for us we do have quite a large tenement
holding. The base we are working from is the first disseminated gold resource, but we
also have identified within this, the northern vein breccia resource area where we have
around 50,000oz at roughly 10gpt. So there is an ability to grow that and thats really
what were looking at as we add to the high-grade story. Bozal to the North incorporates
high grade vein targets which form part of this district play.

Our team is concentrating at Los Cisnes, where surface sampling and scout drill holes
from last year have intercepted bonanza-grade silver, as well as some gold.

Its still early stage but we have got some interesting results that are very worthy of
following up.

When we raised money in May this year [about US$8.5 million] we did say most of our
money was earmarked for Hot Maden, but we would maintain our overall positioning
strategy and with that exploration spend was allocated to Argentina , to further test
some of these zones. We have shown over the years that we are financially disciplined
and a little cautious and we wont throw money down at Argentina if we dont believe
were going to get anything back.

Groundwork has been laid and now with the potential we see it is worth pushing
ahead.
As well as its interests in Argentina, , Marianas rapid progress and upcoming Turkey
milestones have clearly reignited interest among North American investors. Mariana
has just reinstated its Toronto venture exchange listing (TSXV:MRA) and executive
director and chief operating officer Eric Roth says the company, which has come a long
way in a very short time, has welcomed a number of Canadian and US institutional
investors on to its register in recent months.
The company also maintains a US OTC listing (MRLDF).

We want it to be as easy as possible for North American institutional and retail

investors to trade the stock, Roth says.
Mariana and its Hot Maden joint venture partner, respected Turkish private mining
group Lidya, have completed about 12,000m of this years scheduled 20,000m drilling
programme as they work towards completion of a prefeasibility study (PFS) in 2017. The
continuing drilling includes infill and resource extension, geotechnical / metallurgical,
and new exploration holes.

Further results are imminent, while Mariana is on track to release results of its own
preliminary economic assessment (PEA) in October. The work is running in parallel with
the joint venture PFS.

The PEA is a really big step for us because it will be the first time people look at this as
a complete package, Roth says, combining the resource weve just updated; it will put
some mine designs around it and put some processing options forward, and of course
wrap the whole thing into an economic assessment. Whilst adhering, of course, to best
practice in both environmental standards and community relations.

So it will be the first time people will really get to see what the project could look like
and what it could be capable of generating. Its undoubtedly one of the big catalysts for
us going forward in the next few months.
Parsons said ongoing drilling in the new Southern discovery zone, and the Russian
zone, where underground mining occurred up to 1923, further south of the main
resource area, would keep results flowing.

There is still plenty of exploration upside there, he says.

Mariana had more than US$7.5 million in the bank at the end of June, and about $5.5
million of in-the-money warrants due for conversion over the next 6-12 months.

Were pretty well financed going forward all the way through to the end of next year,
Parsons says.

We will be looking at project funding options next year as we go through the PFS.
The market appetite for high-grade gold deposits isnt diminishing. There arent many
high grade discoveries like Hot Maden that can maintain such rapid advancement thats
for sure. This is certainly a standout. It will in one form or another be funded.
Elsewhere in Turkey Mariana has 100% of the Ergama copper-gold porphyry prospect,
an ex-Newmont Mining and Teck project in the far west of the country.

Thats a high-sulphidation system, Parsons says. Were looking at deeper porphyry

targets as well as some high-grade veins as well. So were hoping to test with a few
starter holes later this year.

Ergama is another of the assets we picked up as part of the 2015 Aegean Metal Group
merger that gave us access to Hot Maden.

If you look at our project portfolio we have maintained an active exploration

strategy over the last three years. We are a prospect generator and an active
exploration company and now a developer.

We continue to look for new opportunities and our main objective is have been
trying to acquire projects that really offer economic scale. We have retained a bit of
market leverage, in terms of our ability to raise money its still not that easy to get
pure exploration money over the last 6-12 months weve been assessing
opportunities where others have perhaps been a bit quiet.

We have dropped properties as well. We are very disciplined in terms of how we

go about assessing properties, and exiting them if its not working.

But we certainly do see some opportunities out there and where we believe we
can add value for our shareholders we will continue to try to leverage our position
where it makes sense to do so.