Gold Exploration in West Africa

[FL]

Keegan (KGN.V) Acquires the Esaase Gold Property in Ghana
Tue May 9, 2006

Vancouver, May 9 2006: Keegan is pleased to announce the acquisition of the Esaase gold property in southwest Ghana. Keegan has signed an agreement with Sammetro Co. Ltd of Takoradi, Ghana which gives Keegan the right to earn 90 % interest in the property. In consideration for the 90% interest, Keegan will be paying Sammetro, a Ghanaian company, a total of US$140,000 and 780,000 shares over a three year period. In conjunction with the payments to Sammetro, Keegan will be required to conduct expenditures of US$2.25M on exploration over a three year period. Under the terms of the option agreement Keegan will also be required to pay an underlying party US$420,000 over a two year period. All payments are contingent on the successful completion of due diligence and TSX exchange acceptance of the acquisition.

The Esaase gold property is in the NE trending Asankrangwa belt in southwest Ghana, 13 km NE of Resolute's 3 M oz Obotan deposit and 12 km SW of Ashanti-Bibiani's 200,000 ounce high grade Mpesetia deposit. The property is within a 100 km radius of Newmont's 17 M oz Ahafo deposit and Anglo-Ashanti's 48 M oz Obuasi deposit.

Previous operators of the Esaase Concession have produced over 181,000 ounces of fine to coarse crystalline placer gold which they mined up small narrow tributaries to the apparent source: a hundreds of meters wide mineralized bedrock fault marked by extremely deformed and altered metasediments and extensive gold bearing lode quartz veins, which have historic shafts and adits.

In the course of completing technical due diligence on the property Keegan's geological team had the opportunity to conduct rock and soil gold geochemical surveys. Access to outcrop was excellent on the property due both to steep terrain and the presence of adits, shafts and road cuts. Some highlights of what was discovered are 1-5 g/t Au in rock chip samples over 1-2 meter intervals across numerous veins. Keegan further sampled deformed and altered country rocks between major veins finding grades of 0.12 to 0.56 g/t Au over up to 10 meter sample widths.

On the soil geochemical program, geologists ran three lines (800 meter average spacing, 25 meter sample spacing) across the structure indicated by outcrop. Of the 31 samples, 27 assayed greater than 100 ppb Au and four were greater than 1000 ppb Au. The central, most prospective line had 14 samples that averaged 1212 ppb Au over a 350 meter width. The soils were sampled at the soil/bedrock contact and were obtained in relatively steep ground containing no alluvial content, the soils revealed additional parallel mineralized structures on the property as well. These preliminary results indicate that the mineralized bedrock structure has at least a 2.4 km strike length (completely open to the northeast) with 300-500 meter strike width, suggesting excellent prospectivity for the discovery of bulk mineable resources on the property. Richard Haslinger, P.Eng., is the Qualified Person with respect to NI 43-101 at Esaase. Please see www.keeganresources.com for maps and photos.

As evidenced at Asumura and in keeping with Keegan's business objectives it will immediately commence an aggressive exploration program designed to rapidly determine the potential of this exciting new project.

Dan McCoy, president and CEO of Keegan Resources states: "We are pleased to have successfully obtained another exceptional gold property. Exploring the Esaase concession gives us an opportunity at making another exciting new discovery as we have at Asumura. Keegan is well on its way to discovering a significant gold deposit in Ghana, a mining friendly country containing some of the world's largest gold deposits."

About Keegan Resources
With a primary focus on established gold districts located in stable political environments, Keegan's seasoned exploration and management team have leveraged their collective experience and networks of contacts to efficiently assess, acquire and explore high quality, mid stage, precious and base metal projects. With active exploration programs in Nevada and Ghana combined with an enviable capital structure the company is well positioned to deliver an active, exciting year for its investors.

On Behalf of the Board

Dan McCoy, Ph.D.
President & CEO

For more information please visit the company website at http://www.keeganresources.com or contact investor relations at 604-683-8193 or [e-mail].

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed forward-looking statements. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address future production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments that the Company expects are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on the Company, Investors should review the Company's filings that are available at www.sedar.com.

TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.