NEWS

Contact Lake Airborne Contract Signed

Cooper Minerals Inc. (the "Company") wishes to announce that it has contracted Geotech Ltd. to perform a helicopter-borne VTEM geophysical survey at the Contact Lake IOCG (iron oxide, copper and gold) project in June and July of 2006. This geophysical survey will consist of a minimum of 3,988 line kilometres, to be flown at 100-metre line spacing. The VTEM survey is considered one of the airborne survey industry's best deep-penetrating electromagnetic systems.

The Contact Lake Project area consists of approximately 75,000 acres in the Great Bear Lake area, of the Northwest Territories. The property is located approximately 430 kilometres north of Yellowknife, NWT. Part of the property adjoins the Alberta Star Development Corp. project which is being explored for iron oxide, copper, gold, silver and uranium (IOCG) targets. Alberta Star plans a major exploration program, including a 15,000-metre drill program, in the upcoming field season.

The Olympic Dam or iron oxide/copper/gold (IOCG) model is proposed as the main exploration target for the Mystery Island property in this part of the Great Bear magmatic zone. The Olympic Dam deposit at Roxby Downs in the Gawler craton of southwest Australia consists of dike-like, hematite-rich diatreme breccias in granite and felsic volcanics and has a reported resource of 2.32 billion tonnes of 1.6 per cent copper, 0.5 gram per tonne gold, 3.5 grams per tonne silver and 0.4 kilogram per ton U3O8.

Features of the mineralization and geology in the Great Bear magmatic zone indicate similarities with Olympic Dam IOCG. Four constants postulated by Skirrow (1999) exist in both areas: tectonothermal evolution, host sequence composition, existence of two contrasting hydrothermal fluid types that allow for co-existence of magnetite and hematite, and a setting within a deep, crustal-scale fault system.

This and other similarities conclude that the Contact Lake property is situated in a geological setting that has the potential to host high-unit-value polymetallic mineralization associated with large-tonnage, IOCG-type deposits, as well the potential to host Echo Bay-type, high-grade, lower-tonnage U3O8-Ag mineralization.

For a map of the property location in the Great Bear Lake area, visit the company's website. Mike Magrum, PEng, a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101, has approved the technical content of this news release. The company's objective is to bring the properties to the drill-ready stage as soon as possible.

On behalf of the Board of Directors
Cooper Minerals Inc.

Simon Tam
President & Director


The TSX Venture Exchange has in no way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

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