Update on Investment

RNS Number:0239U
Templar Minerals Limited
08 May 2008


For Immediate Release

                                                                      8 May 2008


                              Templar Minerals Plc

                          ("Templar" or the "Company")


           Commencement of Roaster at the Vatukoula Gold Mine in Fiji

                      Further Open Pit Resource Identified


Templar Minerals notes the announcement made by River Diamonds PLC ("River
Diamonds") today confirming the commencement of the sulphide roaster at the
Vatukoula Gold Mine in Fiji and that further open pit resources have been
identified.


Templar Minerals currently holds 285,000,000 ordinary shares in River Diamonds
representing 16.9% of River Diamond's issued ordinary share capital. As
announced on 25 March 2008, Templar agreed to purchase a further 143,290,000
ordinary shares in River Diamonds which when aggregated with its existing
interest would take the holding to 25.42% of River Diamonds' issued ordinary
share capital. This latter transaction has not yet completed and a further
announcement will be made in due course.


River Diamonds made the following announcement:


River Diamonds announces today that the sulphide roaster commenced processing at
the Company's 100% owned Vatukoula Gold Mine in Fiji. With the roaster start up
the Company expects the first gold pour from ongoing operations to occur over
the next week.


Progress at the President Hill open cut, located near the Borthwick shaft, has
continued, and a total of 99,600 tonnes of ore have been identified at a grade
of 6.11 grams of gold per tonne. It is expected that approximately 65,000 tonnes
of overburden will be removed to access some of the ore. The ore from President
Hill will be used to supplement the daily underground production. Currently the
resources are not JORC compliant but the Company intends to bring the resource
to JORC standards over the coming months.


The Company has also secured 2 Megawatts of additional power from the Fijian
Electricity Authority ("FEA"). The FEA are providing this power at approximately
a 30% discount to the Company's power production costs.


The JORC-compliant gold resources at the Vatukoula Gold Mine total 16.84 million
tonnes at an average grade of 9.49 grams of gold per tonne or 5.15 million
ounces of gold. The mine is budgeted to produce some 28,000 ounces of gold to 30
June 2008 and 111,000 ounces of gold to the year ending June 2009.


Currently the Vatukoula mine employs approximately 700 personnel.


David Lenigas, Chairman of Templar Minerals, commented:


"This is another significant milestone for the Company; with first Gold pour due
to occur within the next week we are delighted with the speed and efficiency
that this significant project has come to fruition.


"The fact that we have also identified additional resources, further proves the
economic case for the re-opening of the project and we will bring you news on
our progress with this as soon as is practicable."


Contacts for Templar Minerals:

Templar Minerals

David Lenigas, Chairman               Tel: +44 (0) 7881 825378

Ian Stalker, Non Exec-Director        Tel: + 27 11 783 5056


Beaumont Cornish                      Tel: +44 (0) 20 7628 3396

Roland Cornish

Rosalind Hill Abrahams

Financial Dynamics                    Tel + 44 (0) 20 7831 3113

Ben Brewerton

Ed Westropp


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.

Note

The resource figures as set out above are the gross resources attributable to
River Diamonds as included in their AiM Admission Document dated 13 March 2008.




                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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