Oriel Resources Announces Sale Of Remaining Gold Assets.

LONDON -- Oriel Resources (TSX:ORL)(AIM:ORI) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Letter Agreement with ELE Capital Corporation of Canada ("ELE") to sell its interests in all of its remaining gold projects ("the Sale"), subject to normal business conditions.

The consideration that Oriel will receive for its remaining active gold assets will be CAD $10.0m to be satisfied by the issue of shares in ELE which is a company quoted on NEX, a separate board of the TSX Venture Exchange (trading symbol "ECC.H"). ELE currently has 2,043,190 shares on issue.

The Company announced in February 2005 that that it was considering the most appropriate structure for its gold related activities. This transaction ensures that Oriel will continue to share in the progress of these gold assets, however the management and funding of the gold assets will no longer divert Oriel's primary focus on the development of its Voskhod chrome project and the finalisation of its Shevchenko nickel studies.

Details of the gold assets to be sold are as follows:

Tokhtazan - Oriel owns two licences to explore for gold at and around the Tokhtazan deposit in the Zhalalbatsky region in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan.

Taldy Bulak - Oriel holds an exclusive option to purchase three licences, namely Taldy Bulak, Kentash and Korgantash, all located in the Talas region of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan on the northern border of the country. Taldy Bulak itself is a copper / gold project. Review of geological data and due diligence will continue to be undertaken.

Taboga - the Taboga Option is structured as an option over a 50% interest in Taboga Mining Geological Company, which holds the resource rights to the Taboga Gold Project and an application has been made for certain licences for geological exploration in respect of the Olcha group of epithermal gold deposits located in the Magadan Oblast in far east Russia

ELE's assets currently consist of approximately CAD$300,000 in cash and it has no other significant assets or liabilities. In the short term ELE will undertake a further fundraising of up to CAD $3.5m. These funds will be applied to working capital and continuation of current exploration programmes in addition to securing further prospective gold projects.

Immediately following the Sale, but before further fundraising, Oriel will hold a significant majority of ELE's issued share capital and Oriel will have the opportunity to appoint a maximum of three directors to the board of ELE. The current non-executive chairman of ELE is Mr Darryl Yea will continue in that role after the Sale.

Executive Chairman of Oriel, Dr Sergey V. Kurzin said:

"Oriel has pursued a strategy of exploring different opportunities for selling or reducing its interest in non-ferrous assets, and I am pleased that this Sale concludes our stated objective of divesting Oriel of its non-core assets so that we can focus entirely on our chrome and nickel projects.

The Sale will crystallise value for Oriel's gold assets through its majority share investment in ELE."

Oriel Resources plc (TSX:ORL) (AIM:ORI)