Sampling Results & Completion of DD at Mbe

Oriole Resources PLC

22 January 2024

 

Oriole Resources PLC 

('Oriole Resources' or 'the Company' or 'the Group')

Due Diligence Sampling Results & Completion of DD at Mbe Gold Project in Cameroon -

up to 256.74 g/t gold

Oriole Resources PLC, the AIM-quoted gold exploration company focussed on West Africa, is pleased to report sampling results for its 90%-owned Mbe orogenic gold project ('Mbe' or the 'Project') in Cameroon and that BCM International Limited ('BCM') has now confirmed it has completed its due-diligence review at the Project (announcement dated 20 November 2023).

Highlights

·    On 19 January 2024, the Company executed a conditional earn-in agreement with BCM whereby BCM would earn up to 50% interest in Mbe by meeting certain financial commitments. Completion of the agreement was conditional on the successful completion of BCM's due-diligence review on or before 31 January 2024;

·    In December 2023, as part of the due-diligence review, BCM collected a total of 639 in-situ pit (channel-chip) and outcrop (rock-chip) samples (total 707 samples including QAQC), over the main 3 kilometre ('km') long zone identified by the Company's previous exploration (announcements dated 30 January 2023, 27 February 2023, 24 May 2023 and 2 January 2024);

·    The zone is underlain by a northeast to north-northeast trending, shear-related porphyritic unit (provisionally recorded as quartz-feldspar-porphyry ('QFP')) that is highly altered along its central core and is silicified and gold-mineralised where the unit is cross-cut by east-northeast trending mineralised structures;

·    BCM's results have returned 155 samples grading equal to or greater than ('≥') 1 gramme per tonne ('g/t') gold ('Au'), 13 of which have graded ≥10 g/t Au;

·    Best results include:

o 256.74 g/t, 133.44 g/t, 75.09 g/t, 33.66 g/t and 22.89 g/t Au from outcrop sampling;

o 25.16 g/t, 23.97 g/t, 9.98 g/t, and 8.75 g/t Au from pit sampling.

·    A further 232 samples graded between 0.20 g/t and 0.99 g/t Au;

·    The highest grades have been returned from smoky quartz veins and strongly silicified QFP host rocks, which commonly display stockwork quartz veining and boxwork textures after pyrite. There is also an abundance of fine-grained aggregations of pyrite encapsulated by silica;

·    The results provide further support for a northern and southern target, MB01-N and MB01-S respectively, where increased dilation (on the sites of structural intersections) has resulted in enhanced levels of gold deposition over a strike length of at least 650 metres ('m') and 750m respectively, and over widths of more than 500m;

·    BCM has confirmed to Oriole that it's due-diligence review is now complete and consequently, the conditions of the Mbe earn-in agreement (see above) have been satisfied. Now that the agreement is unconditional, the Company expects to receive US$1 million in signature payments from BCM before the end of February 2024.  

Oriole CEO, Tim Livesey, said: "These very strong gold results, obtained via an independent due diligence review, support our belief that the Mbe licence has the opportunity to host significant gold deposits. As part of the wider Eastern CLP, the prospects tested by this programme at Mbe appear to represent the northern edge of the proposed 'mineralised corridor', that runs across all five licences. 

"The due-diligence sampling programme was intended to test a broad swathe of the host units, and not just the most obvious targets, in addition to the mineralised veins, so it is very encouraging to see so many sample sites return positive gold grades. It is a strong indication that Cameroon offers opportunities for new discoveries in areas with no significant exploration history to date. 

"On the basis of these results, we are pleased to share that BCM has confirmed a positive outcome from their due diligence review, and that they will be moving forward with the earn in agreement and payment of the signature payments.

"With two of our key projects now fully funded, we are able to progress exciting district-scale exploration at Mbe in parallel with the resource definition and expansion programmes at Bibemi. This promises to deliver plenty of news flow in the coming months. It's also worth noting that we have four other licences in the Eastern CLP and so look forward to continuing our exploration programmes there, and on our lithium licences, later this year."

"As always, we will keep the markets appraised of progress, which has been positive for every programme we have completed within the Eastern CLP since we were granted the licences in February 2021." 

Figure 1:  Rock-chip sampling results to date within the main 3km-long trend at Mbe, highlighting the zones of higher-grade gold mineralisation. BCM's due diligence samples (except those grading less than 0.20 g/t Au) are denoted by larger labels than the Oriole samples. The half arrows denote a sinistral shear sense on the main NE/NNE -trending QFP zone. Inset map shows the relative location of the Mbe mineralisation in relation within the wider Central Licence Package.

Further Details

The Mbe project (312km²) is covered by one of five contiguous gold-focussed licences within the broader Eastern Central Licence Package ('Eastern CLP') in central Cameroon, a district-scale landholding covering 2,266km² of highly-prospective geology. Following the initial identification of a c.12.5km-long zone of en-echelon gold-in-soil anomalies at Mbe during regional programmes, subsequent mapping and rock-chip sampling during 2023 identified a 3km-long geological zone containing areas of high-grade gold mineralisation that yielded results of up to 134.10 g/t Au from surface samples and artisanal workings (announcements dated 30 January 2023, 27 February 2023 and 21 June 2023).

Figure 2:   Simplified summary of the prospective areas of gold mineralisation defined to date within the Eastern CLP, comprising five licences within the wider Central Licence Package

This 3km-long zone, which trends northeast to north-northeast, comprises a (sinistral) shear-related QFP unit that is highly silicified and mineralised where the unit is cross-cut by east-northeast trending mineralised structures, and exhibits a wide halo of pervasive albite alteration. High-grade gold mineralisation has been identified at two sites along the strike length, where these cross-cutting east-northeast veins (also with sinistral movement) intersect the QFP unit, creating zones of dilation. These cross-cutting, east-northeast veins correlate well with the gold-in-soil anomalism identified during Oriole's soil sampling programme in 2022.

In December 2023, BCM completed (at its own cost) a three-week long site visit to Mbe and collected 639 samples weighing 2-5 kilograms each over the 3km-long zone. Of these, 542 samples were collected from pits (5-10 metres deep and exclusively dug by artisanal miners) and 97 samples were collected from outcropping rocks. All of the pit samples were collected from in-situ (weathered saprolite or saprock) material, with composite channel-chip sampling being applied over the exposed pit wall (and perpendicular to the dominant vein set, where apparent) to ensure sample representivity.   

Results have returned 155 samples grading ≥1 g/t Au, 13 of which have graded ≥10 g/t Au. Of these higher-grading samples, best results include 256.74 g/t, 133.44 g/t, 75.09 g/t, 33.66 g/t and 22.89 g/t Au from outcrop sampling, and 25.16 g/t, 23.97 g/t, 9.98 g/t, and 8.75 g/t Au from pit sampling. A further 232 samples graded between 0.20 and 0.99 g/t Au. A review of the QAQC results related to these analyses has confirmed that all materials have reported within acceptable limits, although natural variation has resulted in some outliers in the field duplicate data, which is typical of these systems.

The highest grades have been returned from smoky quartz veins and strongly silicified QFP host rocks, which commonly display stockwork veining and boxwork textures after pyrite. These samples also have an abundance of fine-grained aggregations of pyrite encapsulated by silica.

The results provide further support for targets at MB01-N and MB01-S, where increased dilation (on the sites of structural intersections) has resulted in enhanced levels of gold deposition. These zones extend over strike lengths of at least 650m and 750m respectively, and over widths of more than 500m. Importantly, the data shows that the plus 1 g/t Au grades persist outside of the discrete veins, extending well into the more weakly-altered QFP host rocks to create wider halos of pervasive mineralisation and alteration.

Figure 3.                Left: Outcrop sampling results to date (Oriole and BCM) at MB01-N.

Right: Pit sampling results (BCM only) at MB01-N.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Figure 4:                Left: Outcrop sampling results to date (Oriole and BCM) at MB01-S.

Right: Pit sampling results (BCM only) at MB01-S.

Further testwork is ongoing, including preliminary metallurgical test work to ascertain the recoverability of the gold, but BCM has confirmed to Oriole that it's due-diligence review is now complete, with very positive results obtained.

Accordingly, and following execution of the Mbe earn-in agreement earlier this month, the Company expects to receive US$1 million in signature payments from BCM, with the first tranche of US$500,000 to be made on or before 31 January 2024 and the balance of US$450,000 to be paid on or before 29 February 2024 (announcement dated 19 January 2024). 

Work programmes are currently being designed for the next phase of exploration at the Project, and further guidance on these will be announced in due course.

For further information on the Mbe project, including a JORC Table 1, please see the following page of the Company's website https://orioleresources.com/projects/central-licence-package/.  

Competent Persons Statement 

The technical information in this release that relates to Exploration Results and the planned exploration programme has been compiled by Claire Bay (Executive Director, Exploration and Business Development). Claire Bay (MGeol, CGeol) is a Competent Person as defined in the JORC code and takes responsibility for the release of this information. Claire has reviewed the information in this announcement and confirms that she is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information reproduced here.

The information contained within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the retained EU law version of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 (the "UK MAR") which is part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The information is disclosed in accordance with the Company's obligations under Article 17 of the UK MAR. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

** ENDS **

For further information please visit www.orioleresources.com,  @OrioleResources on Twitter, 

or contact:

Oriole Resources Plc	Tel: [phone]
Tim Livesey / Bob Smeeton / Claire Bay
BlytheRay (IR/PR Contact)	Tel: [phone]
Tim Blythe / Megan Ray
Grant Thornton UK LLP	Tel: [phone]
Samantha Harrison / Ciara Donnelly
SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP Ewan Leggat / Harry Davies-Ball	Tel: [phone]

Notes to Editors:

Oriole Resources PLC is an AIM-listed gold exploration company, operating in West Africa. It is focussed on early-stage exploration in Cameroon, where the Company has reported a Resource of 375,000 oz Au at 2.30g/t in the JORC Inferred category at its 82.2%-owned Bibemi project and has identified multi-kilometre gold and lithium anomalism within the district-scale Central Licence Package project. BCM International is currently earning up to a 50% interest in the Bibemi and Mbe projects in return for a combined investment of US$1.5m in signature payments (US$0.55m of which has already been received), up to US$8m in exploration expenditure, as well as JORC resource-based success payments.

At the more advanced Senala gold project in Senegal, AGEM Senegal Exploration Suarl ('AGEM'), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Managem Group, has earned an initial 51% beneficial interest in the Senala Exploration Licence by spending US$4 million and has the option to spend up to a further US$4 million by 17 February 2024 to earn an additional 19% interest in the licence. The Company also has several interests and royalties in companies operating in East Africa and Turkey that could deliver future cash flow.

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