Neptune Minerals is pleased to announce that it has been granted, pursuant to the Mining Act of Papua New Guinea ("PNG"), four exploration licences in the territorial waters of PNG. The tenements are within the New Ireland Province, cover a total area of 326km² and include Conical Seamount which hosts gold mineralisation similar to the Ladolam deposit on Lihir Island. These tenements are held by Neptune Minerals (PNG) Limited, a wholly-owned susidiary of the Company.

Papua New Guinea licences

Neptune has been granted four exploration licences around Lihir Island, following the Company's exploration licence (EL) applications in May and August 2006: EL 1425 (Conical), EL 1449 (New World), EL 1457 (Dripela Maunten) and EL 1458 (Fopela Susa).

Each tenement has been granted for an initial two-year period, with a work commitment during that time to complete high resolution surface mapping and geophysics and to collect surface samples.

EL1425 targets Conical Seamount to the south of Lihir Island. Conical has already been sampled and drilled by joint British and German research cruises and hosts submarine epithermal gold mineralisation similar to the Ladolam deposit on Lihir Island (46Moz contained gold, currently being mined at 650koz per year). Previous research grab-samples recovered distinctive epithermal-style polymetallic veins with gold grades reaching 230g/t Au, averaging 25g/t Au from 40 samples. Research drilling at the summit plateau of Conical Seamount in 2002 (39 holes, 31% average recovery) confirmed the sub-seafloor extent of surface gold mineralisation and associated alteration to depths of at least 4.5m. Drill core samples of clay-silica alteration contain average gold grade of 14.2g/t Au over lengths of about 30cm and that appear to be part of a more extensive gold zone.

EL 1449 (New World), EL 1457 (Dripela Maunten) and EL 1458 (Fopela Susa) have not been researched to any great extent, but cover features similar to Conical and in similar locations on the flanks of the Lihir seamount massif.

Neptune's Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Simon McDonald said:

"These newly acquired PNG tenements are an exciting addition to Neptune's exploration portfolio, which now totals more than 300,000km² including current tenements and areas under application. PNG is highly prospective for gold, with Lihir Island hosting one of the world's largest gold deposits.

"The granting of these four tenements in PNG is an important step in Neptune's strategy to build a geographically diverse portfolio of quality exploration tenements, and follows the addition last month of a 200,000km² licence in the Federated States of Micronesia," he concluded.

END

For further information please contact:

Simon McDonald (Neptune MD and CEO):                         This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Olly Cairns (Blue Oar Securities Plc, Nomad and Broker):     T: +44(0) 20 7448 4400
Sofia Reham (Cardew Group, PR):                                  T: +44(0) 20 7930 0777


Note:
The information in this announcement that relates to the geology and drilling samples, has been prepared and reviewd by Dr Simon McDonald who is a competent person as described in Part two of the AIM Guidance Notes fo Mining and Oil and Gas Companies.

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