Release: Oropa: Drilling to commence at Tambang Hitam

September 22,2005 - Oropa is pleased to announce its intention to commence initial drill testing of the Tambang Hitam gold prospect, located in the south block of the Pungkut Project, North Sumatra, Indonesia.

Tambang Hitam is a low sulphidation epithermal gold prospect conveniently located approximately 5km from the Trans Sumatran Highway. The area was subjected to limited exploration bt the Dutch Moera Sipongi Mining Company between 1935 and 1939, with a number of exploration adits completed on known quartz vein system.

Mapping of the prospect has identified cohesive alteration systems consistent with low sulphidation type gold deposits. Limited soil sampling of the central alteraton system has defined a cohesive, 600m long north-south trending gold anomaly, within which 3 separate epithermal vein systems have been identified to date.

Trenching over the central soil anomaly returned results of 20m @ 6.47g/t Au and 10m @ 2.22 g/t Au. Selected rock chips from old Dutch adits have returned values up to 28.6 g/t Au.

Alteration types and quartz vein textures observed at Tambang Hitam indicate low depositional temperatures, which imply that most of the gold-bearing system remains intact below the current topography.

Oropa intends to commence drill testing the vein targets at tambang Hitam, with a drill rig booked to mobilise to site early nexth month.

Currently, Oropa staff are busy with additional mapping, gridding, sampling and surveying of the area in preparation for the commencement of drilling. (end of release)