Oceanagold And Climax Mining Merger

The Directors of Oceana Gold Limited and Climax Mining Limited are pleased to announce the successful completion of their merger. At the Climax Mining Share and Option Scheme Meetings on Monday 30 October 2006, over 99% of the votes cast by shareholders and option holders were in support of the merger.

"This is an outstanding result which indicates the level of support our shareholders have in OceanaGold's growth strategy." commented Stephen Orr.

Former Director, Bruce Thomas will be leaving the OceanaGold Board to pursue other opportunities. The Board thanks him for his service and contributions.

The merged entity, listed on the ASX and NZX as OceanaGold, has a market capitalisation of $480million (based on a 73 cent share price) and forecast gold production of +550,000 AuE ounces by the end of 2008.

"The merger is consistent with OceanaGold's growth strategy and delivers a leading Pacific Rim gold mining company with a diverse portfolio of development and exploration projects in New Zealand and the Philippines", Orr said.

"The new OceanaGold will have one of the strongest development and exploration portfolios of any mid-cap gold company and over the next three years, we will build and commission three new mines that will increase our gold production from 180 thousand ounces per annum to over 550 thousand gold equivalent ounces per annum." said Mr Orr.

"We have increased our exploration expenditures to comprehensively explore the entire Reefton and Macraes Goldfields and are confident that we will discover additional reserves."

"We have acquired one of the most comprehensive exploration portfolios in the Philippines and will devote A$6 to A$7 million per year to exploration for new gold deposits."

"To ensure that we deliver value, we will maintain the Didipio project schedule that we have already been managing under contract to the Climax Board and we have spent the period during the merger developing a detailed Philippine and New Zealand exploration plan that will start in early 2007." he said.

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