Joint Venture

Ormonde Mining PLC
24 April 2002

                               Ormonde Mining PLC

          Ormonde agrees Joint Venture with Moroccan State Exploration

                      Company covering new gold discovery

                            at Tamlalt, NE Morocco.



Ormonde Mining plc ("Ormonde"; ORM) is pleased to announce that it has entered
into a Joint Venture Agreement with the Moroccan State Exploration Company,
Bureau de Recherches et de Participations Minieres (BRPM). This Agreement
relates to 14 permits covering a total area of 224km2 in the Tamlalt area in the
northeast of the country, where BRPM geologists have discovered gold
mineralization in a Precambrian volcanic sequence. Under the terms of the
Agreement, Ormonde will have a 40% interest in the BRPM permits, which are
located around 600km by road SSE of the capital Rabat, with expenditure on a 60
(BRPM)/40 (Ormonde) basis.


The permits cover two belts of late Precambrian rocks dominated by rhyolitic and
dacitic volcanics, with strike lengths of 9 and 6 kilometres respectively.
Hydrothermal alteration dominated by silicification and quartz veining is
evident in a number of outcrops. The majority of the work carried out to-date by
the BRPM has concentrated on a small portion of the southern belt at Jebel
Malek, where free gold was discovered in outcrop. Trenching to-date over a
limited area of 150 x 150 metres revealed several quartz veins from 1-2 metres
thick within a silicified host rock, which returned best intervals of 4.0m @
12.9g/t gold within 15.0m @ 4.0g/t; 2.0m @ 28.4g/t gold within 20.0m @ 3.7g/t;
and 5.0m @ 14.9g/t gold within 12.0m @ 6.5g/t.


Initial diamond drilling by the BRPM at Jebel Malek to test the depth extension
to this surface mineralization has returned best intersections so far as
follows:




            Hole No.             From (m)          Interval (m)               Au g/t
                JM-1                 85.0                   8.0                  2.7
           including                 85.0                   2.0                  6.7
                                    102.0                  21.0                  5.2
           including                102.0                   5.0                 19.4
                JM-3                 36.0                  12.0                  1.0
                                    104.0                   5.0                  1.4
                                    155.0                   3.0                  3.0




Results from four other holes on the prospect have returned maximum values of
0.7-1.7g/t over metric intervals.


The Jebel Malek prospect represents only a small portion of the highly
prospective permit area, much of which has not yet been explored. Consequently,
activities over the forthcoming months will involve compilation of all data
collected by the BRPM to-date at Jebel Malek, and importantly detailed mapping
and sampling of alteration and veining over the entire permit area. Some 50km
northeast of the Joint Venture permits, gold has been produced from a number of
small privately-owned mines working quartz-antimony veins, where head grades are
reported to be as high as 60g/t, demonstrating additional exploration potential
in this part of the country.


Ormonde is currently assessing other Joint Venture opportunities with the BRPM
with a view to participating in further such ventures in Morocco. Ormonde
Managing Director Kerr Anderson commented, "I believe that Morocco is a country
with excellent potential, which will be the focus of much of the Company's
future activities. Our Moroccan company, headed by local Manager Mohamed
Oussama, formerly a Director of the Department of International Cooperation in
the BRPM, is looking at other projects with an emphasis on areas where the BRPM
has located gold mineralization".




Enquiries to:

Kerr Anderson - Managing Director

Ormonde Mining plc

Tel: [phone]

[e-mail]

Colin Andrew - Chairman

Ormonde Mining plc

Tel: [phone]

[e-mail]

John Carroll - Director

Ormonde Mining plc

Tel: [phone]

[e-mail]

Eugenee Mulhern

Davy Corporate Finance Limited

Tel: [phone]



Ormonde Website

www.ormondemining.com

24 April, 2002



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