There was encouraging news from Oriole Resources (AIM: ORR) on Tuesday, with five high priority gold targets now chosen at its Central Licence Package in Cameroon.

The company is hard at work in this highly prospective region, where initial results from the easternmost licences have confirmed the presence of two main mineralisation trends.

Just as the firm’s early work in 2019 suggested, evidence is mounting that this district could contain several targets along these two gold corridors.

Everything is coming together right at this moment to reward Oriole’s faith in this project, with work continuing to uncover the potential on offer.

Oriole expects “multiple targets” from new exploration district

Oriole completed first-pass regional mapping and stream sediment sampling, covering the Central Licence Package’s (“CLP”) five easternmost licences, in the third quarter of 2021.

The CLP itself is a district-scale package covering 3,592 square kilometres, with Oriole owning 90%.

Bureau d’Etudes et d’Investigations Géologico-minières, Géotechniques et Géophysiques (“BEIG3”) and associate Roxane Minerals own the other 10% free-carried interest in the licences up until the 50,000oz minimum measured and indicated resource. Beyond that, funding is pro-rata on a contribute or dilute basis.

As announced in August and October, work so far has identified eighteen targets with results above 30 parts per billion of gold, delivering grades as high as 291 parts per billion.

Having now ranked those initial eighteen targets, Oriole has identified five priority 1 zones for follow-up soil sampling.

Already, the company has designed regional-scale soil grids to cover these five priority 1 zones, with 400m by 200m sample spacing. Three of these grides are centred over the Tcholliré-Banyo shear zone (“TBSZ”), trending northeast.

The firm describes the TBSZ as a “splay off the larger-scale Central African Shear Zone” and believes the TBSZ to be “a key control on the gold anomalies identified to date” at CLP.

Based on academic literature, the TBSZ and its associated shears, faults and thrusts make up one of the regions significant structural controls when it comes to gold and other mineralisation.

Chief executive Tim Livesey explains that the initial gold results from the easternmost CLP licence have enabled the firm “to confirm a substantial area of structural complexity, where at least two main trends or corridors of mineralisation are evident”.

Of the two gold corridors, one broadly follows the TBSZ and the other runs perpendicular and trends northwest.

“The multiple gold anomalies identified within a number of coincident drainage basins associated with these trends, gives us great confidence that this new exploration district has the potential to yield multiple targets along these gold corridors, as we expected following our early prospectivity work in 2019,” says Livesey.

Plenty to look forward to from Oriole

Before the year is out, Oriole expects to complete its initial pilot area sampling, with gold results to follow soon after in the first quarter of 2022.

The pilot area covers the east of the Ndom and Mbe permits – with the core area of the pilot including a higher resolution 400m by 100m sampling grid.

The company will be continuing sampling of the remaining grids through to early 2022. Based on results, additional testing over priority 2 gold zones will follow.

As Livesey says:

“We are now able to rapidly move the exploration programme forward to further define areas of interest and we look forward to sharing the results from the initial soil sampling and mapping programmes as we head toward the end of the year and into 2022.”

Alongside this, mapping and sampling will resume in the fourth quarter over a further three licences in the west of CLP. This will follow a “reconnaissance visit” aimed at assessing ground conditions.

CLP is far from Oriole’s only project. It has other early-stage exploration projects in Cameroon - Bibemi, Wapouzé – as well as interests and royalties across Africa and Turkey.

Not only that, the firm also has a more advanced project over in Senegal. This Senegal project, known as Senala, is part of an option earn-in agreement allowing IAMGOLD to earn a 70% interest in the project by spending $8 million.

This advanced project, combined with ongoing success at CLP, makes a solid case for Oriole’s potential. And with share prices among miners suffering in 2021, it brings with it the opportunity to buy at a more affordable level. An opportunity that might not last much longer, especially as further exploration drives newsflow.

Author: Anna Farley

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