Exploration Activity Update

Ovoca Gold PLC
23 May 2006


                         Ovoca Gold plc ('Ovoca' or the 'Company')

                         Expansion of Russian Licence Area and
                         
                         Commencement of 2006 Drilling Programmes





Ovoca Gold Plc (AIM: OVG; IEX: OVX) is pleased to announce that



•         Ovoca has acquired an additional 250 km2 of exploration territory
through the formation of a new joint venture company 'Lovozero Mining Company'
which holds the Porosozero Exploration License.  Ovoca's total exploration land
under licence in northwest Russia now totals 669 km2.



•         2006 Drilling programmes have commenced on the Kolmozero-Voronya
License and the Klippen Property in northern Sweden.



New Joint Venture Announcement:  Porosozero Exploration License


Ovoca is pleased to announce that it has formed a Russian registered joint
venture company 'Lovozero Mining Company' with its partner, the Central Kola
Expedition, with each party holding a 50% equity interest.  Ovoca has the right
to acquire the Central Kola Expedition's equity, at par value, in the joint
venture at a date of Ovoca's choosing following the transfer of the Porosozero
Exploration License, previously held by the Central Kola Expedition, into the
name of the above joint venture company.  The license covers an area of 250 km2
and is situated to the east of the three licenses held by Ovoca's subsidiary,
Black Fox Resources, within the highly prospective Kolmozero-Voronya Greenstone
belt.



This Exploration license has now been successfully transferred to the Lovozero
Mining Company and the joint venture company, in becoming the new registered
owner of the license, accepts all the liabilities in terms of work commitments
for the life of the license.  The license is valid until 2009 with rights for
extension subject to fulfilment of the conditions of the license agreement.  In
addition Ovoca has agreed to reimburse the Central Kola Expedition for
exploration works completed to date on the above license amounting to US$80,000.
  The joint venture agreement was drafted with the assistance of Padva and
Partners, attorneys at Law, of Moscow.



Exploration on Porosozero conducted by the Central Kola Expedition during 2005,
in the form of deep overburden till sampling, has defined:



•         an extensive anomalous zone of gold over 3 kilometres in length with
widths averaging 150 metres and anomalous gold values of from 20 parts per
billion to 1,180 parts per billion (1.2 grammes per tonne);



•         similar geochemical anomalies found in the area of the
Kolmozero-Voronya license were found to define high-grade deposits such as
Oleninskoye and South Leshaya; and



•         the extensive gold anomaly is the highest so far defined by deep
geochemical sampling conducted by he Central Kola Expedition within the
Kolmozero-Voronya Greenstone belt.



Ovoca now holds almost all of the highly prospective ground in this belt,
hosting gold, a copper-molybdenum porphyry and rare metal deposits, along with
intersected platinum group metal and copper-nickel mineralisation and potential
for copper-nickel deposits.  The total area covered by Ovoca licenses, in
northwest Russia, amount to 669 km2 in total area and is broken down by license
in the following table:


License Area                                                                           km2
Kolmozero-Voronya (Black Fox Resources)                                                150
Kolmozero-Voronya SW (Black Fox Resources)                                             117
Kontozero (Black Fox Resources)                                                        152
Porosozero (Lovozero Mining Company)                                                   250
Total                                                                                  669





Kola Peninsula, Russia - Exploration Activities



Ovoca has commenced its 2006 drilling programme on the Kolmozero-Voronya
property in the Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia.  The programme will
initially involve infill drilling to further delimit and upgrade the resources
of the orebodies of the Oleninskoye and South Leshaya deposits and the Pellapahk
copper-molybdenum-gold porphyry deposit.  An initial 5,000 metres of drilling
has been outlined with additional drilling to be based on the results from
surface trenching.



The Pellapahk copper-molybdenum-gold porphyry deposit has historical resource
estimates of:



•         298 million tonnes of ore, P1 category according to the Russian and
CIS resource classification system, with average grades of 0.06% molybdenum and
0.25% copper reported by the Central Kola Expedition in 1985;



•         the high-grade gold veins of the adjacent Oleninskoye deposit are
known, from historical drilling, to extend into the Pellapahk deposit which
should add a considerable gold credit to the value of the deposit;



•         re-assays of reject samples from historical drilling indicate that
grades previously reported and analysed by qualitative spectral methods may be
an understatement of the true grade when compared to assay results from
conventional quantitative analytical techniques; and



•         to the north of Pellapahk at Leshaya North there is potential for a
similar sized porphyry deposit which has yet to be explored, defined by a
similar geochemical anomaly for molybdenum and copper which originally resulted
in the discovery of the Pellapahk deposit.





New Licenses in the Kolmozero-Voronya Greenstone Belt



The acquisition of two additional exploration licenses, announced on the 10
November 2005, within the Kolmozero-Voronya Greenstone Belt (Kolmozero-Voronya
Southwest and Kontozero) by ZAO Black Fox Resources has considerably enhanced
Ovoca's land holding position on the highly prospective precious and base metal
Kolmozero-Voronya Greenstone belt.  The Kolmozero-Voronya license provide
additional prospects including Verkhny Nyalm, a potential medium-grade-
high-tonnage deposit with associated palladium and platinum potential and the
eastern extension of the Meshen deposit.  The Kontozero area includes an
extensive gold geochemical anomaly with grades of 0.2g/t over an area of 1 km2.
The extensive gold geochemical anomaly with geology and structure analogous with
Cripple Creek (Colorado, USA) and Ladolan (Papua-New Guinea) make the Kontozero
caldera a highly prospective structure for significant gold mineralisation.  The
2006 exploration programme will include surface prospecting, deep overburden
sampling and trenching to define underlying gold mineralisation which will be
followed up by core drilling.





Sweden - Exploration Activities



At the prospective Klippen project in northern Sweden, Ovoca has commenced a
drilling programme to further explore the strike length and continuity of two
broad areas of medium-grade gold mineralisation.  Assay results report a grade
of 9.78g/t over an intersection of 1.0 metre at a depth of 7.0 to 8.0 metres
from surface within a zone of mineralisation previously outlined by trenching.
These areas have previously been defined by limited drilling and trenching which
had:



•         intersected broad mineralised zones of: 20 metres at 2.4 grammes per
tonne average grade in a surface trench;



•         24.1 metres at an average grade of 1.72 grammes per tonne which
included an intersection of 5.7 metres at 3.3 grammes per tonne and 1.0m at 7.8
grammes per tonne extending within two zones also within a surface trench;



•         strike length of the two zones is over 450 metres; and



•         trench sampling also reported an intersection with an average grade of
copper mineralisation of greater than 1.0% copper over 8.0 metres;





Further assays on 2006 Russian and Swedish exploration activities are expected
over the coming weeks.





Technical Glossary:


Copper-molybdenum porphyry        Low grade high tonnage deposit associated with an altered intrusive body as
                                  found at Bethlehem, Canada and El Teniente, Chile;


Deep overburden till sampling     Exploration technique to drill through glacial deposits to sample the base
                                  of the deposit overlying the bedrock;

Mineralisation                    In the above context refers to the presence minerals containing precious
                                  and base metals of economic interest;


Russian Resource Classification   Based on the Soviet classification system with P1 category considered
                                  equivalent to JORC inferred; and


Spectral analysis                 A comparative qualitative analytical technique used to estimate mineral
                                  content;



The above information has been reviewed and verified by Mr. Roger Turner,
Director and Chairman of Ovoca, for the purposes of the Guidance Note for
Mining, Oil and Gas Companies issued by the London Stock Exchange in March 2006.
  Mr. Turner, with 40 years of mining engineering, management and consulting
experience, graduated as a mining engineer from the Camborne School of Mines,
has an MSc degree in Economic Geology from Leicester University and is a member
in good standing with the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and a UK Chartered
Engineer.





Ovoca Resources Plc is an international exploration company with dual listing in
 London (OVG.L) and Ireland (OVX.IR), exploring for Precious and base metals in
                           Russia, Sweden and Ireland





For further information please visit www.ovocagold.com or contact:

Dr Barrie Oakes, CEO - Ovoca Gold Plc                  Roger Turner, Chairman - Ovoca Gold Plc

Tel: [phone]                               Tel: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]                      Email: [e-mail]

Mr John Frain - Davy                                   Richard Chase- Ambrian (AIM Broker)

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                                                       Email: [e-mail]


Nick Bias / Alex Buck - Buck Bias (UK PR)              Tom McCormack - Connexions PR (Irish PR)

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