New Mineralised Zone identified at Lawa West

Oriole Resources PLC (AIM: ORR), the AIM-quoted gold exploration company focussed on West and Central Africa, is pleased to announce an update for its 82.2%-owned Bibemi orogenic gold project ('Bibemi' or the 'Project') in Cameroon, where BCM International Limited ('BCM') is currently funding up to US$4 million in exploration expenditure in return for up to a 50% interest in the Project.

Highlights

• Recent mapping within the wider Bibemi licence has extended the mineralised strike length of the Lawa West prospect to 6 kilometres ('km').
• Results from 163 selected vein rock-chip samples have returned 17 samples grading over 0.5 grammes per tonne ('g/t') gold ('Au') from quartz vein material, with best results of 54.50g/t Au and 38.40g/t Au.
• Mineralised quartz and quartz-tourmaline veins outcrop in the same litho-structural setting as the main Bakassi Zone 1 prospect ('Bakassi Zone 1' or 'BZ1'), where the Company has defined a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate ('MRE') of 375,000 contained troy ounces ('oz') grading 2.30g/t Au.
• The total confirmed mineralised trend at Bibemi now stands at 17 km.
• A number of north-east trending mineralised potential corridors have been outlined, presenting further opportunities for drill testing and future resource definition.
• Follow-up work will be considered as part of future programmes at the Project.

Chief Executive Officer of Oriole Resources, Martin Rosser, said: "The results reported for Lawa West are encouraging as they significantly expand the potential mineralised corridor length of the prospect, and the overall system at Bibemi. More generally, this bodes well for the discovery of additional sources of mineralised material on the Project licence that could be processed at a central mineral processing plant at Bibemi."

Figure 1. Rock-chip sampling results at Lawa West, on mapped geology. Interpreted mineralised corridors are bound by red dashed lines.

At the Bibemi orogenic gold project (177 square kilometres ('km2') in area) in the North region of Cameroon, the Company's exploration to date has identified shear-hosted gold mineralisation at four main prospects - Bakassi Zone 1, Bakassi Zone 2, Lawa West and Lawa East - within a circa 12 km long mineralised hydrothermal system at surface. Since Q1-2021, the Company has completed four phases of diamond drilling at the Project for a total of 6,685.40m in 54 holes, that has delivered best intersections of 14.80m grading 4.27g/t Au and 7.70m grading 2.74g/t Au (hole BBDD050), 6.50m grading 3.92g/t Au (hole BBDD034), 5.20m grading 1.97g/t Au (hole BBDD031), and 9.20m grading 1.31g/t Au (hole BBDD042) (announcements dated 20 December 2021, 9 February 2022 and 15 September 2022).

In January 2024, the Company reported an updated MRE for the Bakassi Zone 1 of 5.1 million tonnes grading 2.30g/t Au for approximately 375,000 oz Au in the JORC Inferred Resources category, based on a 0.45g/t Au lower cut-off grade and within a US$2,000/oz gold price pit shell (announcement dated 15 January 2024).

A fully funded Phase 5 drilling programme is currently underway at Bakassi Zone 1 for a planned 7,060m in 62 holes. Initial results from the programme are anticipated later in Q3-2024 and will be reported in batches (announcement dated 17 July 2024).

Mapping and rock-chip sampling within the wider Bibemi licence area has confirmed a south-western extension of the Lawa West prospect to approximately 6 km along strike, with quartz and quartz-tourmaline veins outcropping in the same litho-structural setting as at the main BZ1-MRE zone. The western domain is dominated by metatonalite, with lenticular units of schistose metavolcanics (termed locally as mafic shists) occurring throughout the mapped area. As at Bakassi Zone 1, shearing and veining occurs at the contact zone between tonalite and metavolcanic units due to the competency contrast between the two units. The eastern to southeastern part of the prospect is occupied by a younger syn- to late-tectonic alkaline granite. The confirmed mineralised trend length at Bibemi now stands at 17 km.

Figure 2. Location map showing extensional mapping at Lawa West in the context of all prospects areas defined to date.

Results from 163 selective rock-chip samples (including QAQC) have returned 17 samples grading over 0.5g/t Au from quartz vein material, with best results of 54.50g/t Au and 38.40g/t Au. A review of the QAQC has deemed the data to be of good quality.

The results have delineated a number of north-east trending mineralised corridors, which present future targets for drill testing and resource definition. Follow-up work programmes are being considered.