Placing and Expanded Exploration Programme

    RNS Number : 3222W
  River Diamonds PLC
  09 June 2008
   

        AIM: RVD


    River Diamonds Plc

    ("River Diamonds" or "the Company")

    Placing of £3 million and Expanded Exploration Programme Underway


    River Diamonds is pleased to announce that it has raised an additional £3m at 4.25p per share. This follows the £5.5m financing
announced by the Company on 5 June 2008. 

    Gross proceeds of this latest fundraising are £2,999,999.98 through the issue of 70,588,235 ordinary shares at a placing price of 4.25p
per share, representing approximately 3.7% of the enlarged issued share capital. Application will be made for the new shares to be admitted
to trading on AIM and it is expected that admission will take place on or around 16 June 2008. 

    The total number of ordinary shares in issue following this placing and issue of shares is 1,902,371,072. 

    These funds will be used primarily, for an expanded exploration programme at the Company's wholly-owned Vatukoula Gold Mine in Fiji
("Vatukoula" or "the Project"). This exploration programme will seek to:

    *     Increase Vatukoula's stated JORC-compliant gold reserves of 830,000 ounces (2.26 million tonnes grading 11.41 grams per tonne
gold) by upgrading the JORC-compliant resource base of 5,150,000 ounces (16.84 million tonnes grading 9.49 grams per tonne gold). This will
facilitate the mining operations in planning and optimising annual production and operating costs
    *     Increase Vatukoula's gold resource base above those already identified.
    Four initial target areas have been identified namely:
    
                1)    Near mine open pittable opportunities
    2)    Vatukoula Deep Project
    3)    In-fill drilling on existing resource base
    4)    New Targets identified within the existing Special Prospecting License Areas

    David Lenigas, Executive Director of River Diamonds, commented, "We are delighted to have successfully concluded these fundraisings
which underline investors' conviction in the Vatukoula project. 

    The Vatukoula Gold Mine has a long and impressive production history yet exploration has been significantly under-funded over the past
decade. The recommencement of exploration drilling at the Vatukoula Deep and surrounding areas is now focused on increasing reserves and
resources at the mine and continuing Vatukoula's success."

    Qualified Person
    Kiran Morzaria B.Eng (ACSM), MBA, has reviewed and approved the information contained in this announcement. Kiran holds a Bachelor of
Engineering (Industrial Geology) from the Camborne School of Mines and an MBA (Finance) from CASS Business School. Kiran is the Finance
Director of River Diamonds. He is a fellow of the Geological Society.

    Enquiries: 

 River Diamonds plc                       Hichens, Harrison &
                                          Co plc
 David Lenigas         + 44 20 7016 5100  Dave Paxton           + 44 20 7382 7785
 Colin Orr Ewing       + 44 20 7352 4117

 W.H. Ireland Limited                     Parkgreen
                                          Communications
 David Porter          + 44 20 7220 1666  Louise Goodeve        + 44 20 7851 7480
 James Joyce                              Justine Howarth



This information is provided by RNS
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