Oriole Resources PLC has a diverse portfolio of African gold assets

Experienced management
Attractive exploration portfolio
Favourable gold price environment

What does Oriole Resources do?

Oriole Resources PLC (LON:ORR) is a resources exploration and development specialist with a focus on gold.

The company has a long-standing presence in West Africa and Turkey and has lately decided to focus on Cameroon.

Chief executive Tim Livesey is an experienced mining professional with a long track record in the industry.

Other well-known faces in the junior mining space, notably John McGloin, formerly of Amara and now of Perseus, and David Pelham, one of the geological brains behind Hummingbird’s early exploration success, are also on the board.

What does Oriole Resources own?

Cameroon: Oriole’s own focus is early-stage gold exploration in Cameroon and the Bibemi and Wapouzé projects in particular.

These projects lie over highly prospective neoproterozoic Pan-African greenstone belts in north-eastern Cameroon.

Oriole has the option to earn a 90% interest by spending US$3.12mln.

Under the terms of the option agreement, Oriole will earn an initial 51% of both projects by funding US$1.56mln of exploration over the next two years.

Thereafter, Oriole can earn a further 39% for an additional U$1.56mln exploration expenditure, or on the completion of a pre-feasibility study on at least one of the projects, over the subsequent two years.

Senegal: The company also has a significant stake in the more advanced Dalafin gold project in Senegal, where IAMGOLD has the option to spend US$8mln to earn a 70% interest.

Elsewhere: In addition, Oriole holds interests and royalties in companies operating throughout Africa and Turkey and continues to assess new gold and base metal opportunities in both regions.

The Muratdere copper-molybdenum-gold deposit is being advanced towards mine-construction by owner Lodos.

How it’s doing

In Senegal, IAMGOLD has completed its 10,000-metre air core drilling programme at the Senala project as scheduled. As per previous guidance, it is anticipated that these results will be available during the first quarter of this year. The drilling is intended to define the geochemical footprint of the gold mineralisation at the Faré prospect, where historical drilling has returned best results of 20 metres grading 31.13 grammes per tonne gold.

Subject to the results of the drilling programme, IAMGOLD has planned a further 5,000 metres follow-up reverse circulation drilling and has also planned 1,000 metres of diamond drilling to test mineralised intervals previously identified. IAMGOLD is currently in Year Three of its earn-in to an initial 51% interest in Senala and, under the terms of the option agreement, must have spent a further US$1 million by the end of February 2021 to keep the option in good standing.

In Cameroon, Oriole anticipates first results from its maiden diamond drilling programme at the Bibemi project later this quarter and into the second quarter. The total planned programme now stands at 28 holes for 3,080 metres.

At Wapouzé, pilot trenching is underway to test key gold-in-soil anomalies identified from previous soil sampling campaigns. Sampling and detailed mapping are being undertaken to help understand the spatial-temporal relation between lithologies, alteration and structures. Subject to results, it is possible that the drill rig could be moved to test targets at Wapouzé following the programme at Bibemi.

Oriole is also awaiting the approval of eight new licences in central Cameroon, which cover a contiguous land package of around 3,500 square kilometres within highly prospective terrane for gold mineralisation.

In Djibouti, Thani Stratex Djibouti, in which Oriole has an 11.80% interest, completed its Phase 1 programme at the Hesdaba project for 2,242 metres of diamond drilling in 17 holes and 3,413 metres of RC drilling in 33 holes. The final results for this programme, as well as from TSD’s ongoing RC and diamond drilling programmes at the nearby Assaleyta project, are expected during the first quarter.

What the boss says: Tim Livesey, chief executive

After new targets were identified in Cameroon late in February 2021, chief executive Tim Livesy said:” This work endorses the company’s initial assessment that the district has significant potential to host orogenic-type gold mineralisation. Whilst these 12 ‘first-pass’ remote sensing targets look interesting from a desktop analysis point of view, we will also be carrying out a wider, district-scale stream sediment sampling programme and mapping, as the main part of the 2021 programme across the entire Licence Package. From this work we expect to identify many more areas of interest for detailed follow up in later exploration phases. Throughout, we will continue to re-evaluate and re-prioritise our targets across this potential new gold exploration district as more data becomes available from the field programmes, ably led by Abdoul Mbodji, our West African Exploration Manager and Claire Bay our VP Exploration.”.