Maiden Drilling Programme Commences at Mbe

Oriole Resources (AIM: ORR), the AIM-quoted gold exploration company focussed on West and Central Africa, is delighted to announce the commencement of a maiden drilling programme at its 80%[1]-owned Mbe gold project in the Adamawa region of Cameroon ('Mbe' or the 'Project'), where BCM International Limited ('BCM') is currently funding up to US$4 million in exploration expenditure.

Mbe is just one of five licences within the Company's broader package of contiguous exploration licences, the 'Eastern CLP', which covers 2,266 square kilometres ('km2') of ground prospective for gold ('Au') deposits. Work to date at Mbe has focussed on the MB01 prospect ('MB01'), which comprises the MB01-N and MB01-S targets.

Highlights

• A fully funded maiden diamond drilling programme is now underway for a planned 6,590 metres ('m') across 24 holes at MB01-S, the largest and most prospective target at MB01, with fence lines-oriented E-W to optimally target the key mineralised structures.
• The MB01 prospect was considered drill ready following excellent results from a major trenching programme (announcements dated 3 September 2024, 30 September 2024 and 12 November 2024), with the MB01-S target returning best intersections of 51.00 m at 1.02 grammes per tonne ('g/t') Au (MBT007), 88.00m at 0.71g/t Au and 47.75m at 1.23g/t Au (MBT008), and 79.00m at 0.43g/t Au (MBT015).
• The initial four holes to be drilled will be paired scissor holes, sited over the core of the steeply dipping 500m long mineralised corridor, to review and confirm the structural orientation of the mineralised zones and therefore the optimal drilling azimuth.
• Drilling at the MB01-N target, which has also identified substantial widths of mineralisation over a mineralised corridor length of 450m, will be considered later in the field season.

Chief Executive Officer of Oriole Resources, Martin Rosser, said: "This is a highly exciting and important milestone for our Mbe gold project. The project team, with our partner BCM, has worked hard to mobilise the new BCM drill rig, and prepare for the Oriole designed and managed intensive maiden drilling campaign. We are greatly looking forward to reporting the results from the first holes drilled on the MB01-S target in due course."

Figure 1. Maiden drilling programme planned at MB01-S. Drilling is targeting the core zone of mineralisation identified by structural assessment, trenching and gold-in-soil anomalism. The majority of holes will be drilled towards the east (azimuth of 090˚) with two planned scissor holes to be drilled towards the west (azimuth of 270˚).

Mbe, with a licence area of 312km2, is an orogenic gold project located within the broader 2,266km2 'Eastern CLP' package of five contiguous gold-focussed exploration licences in the Adamawa region in central Cameroon. Since 2022, the Company's systematic exploration programmes have identified a 3 kilometre ('km')-long, northeast-trending prospect, named MB01 (or the 'Prospect'), which sits within a wider 12.5km-long zone of gold-in-soil anomalism that trends east-northeast.

At MB01, increased dilation at the sites of structural intersections is believed to have resulted in enhanced levels of gold deposition at the MB01-N and MB01-S targets. Gold mineralisation at these targets comprises high-grade, sulphide-rich quartz veins and veinlets that occur within, or at the contact with, an intensely altered felsic unit, which itself is mineralised and creates wide envelopes of pervasive, lower-grade gold mineralisation.

Results from 4,537 infill soil samples (taken on a 100m x 25m grid, including Quality Assurance and Quality Control ('QAQC') samples) over the whole Prospect, delivered up to 8,174 parts per billion ('ppb') (8.17g/t) Au and identified three substantial zones of in-situ gold mineralisation, the most significant being at MB01-S, where a greater than 100ppb Au gold-in-soil anomaly extends over an area of 1.15km long by up to 0.75km wide.

Following the infill soil programme at MB01, two phases of trenching for a total of 7,055m have been completed across the MB01-N and MB01-S sub-prospects, where access and ground conditions allowed. Whilst significant intersections were returned from both MB01-N and MB01-S (announcements dated 3 September 2024, 30 September 2024 and 12 November 2024, and summarised in Table 1), MB01-S was determined to be the priority target of the two and will be the focus of the maiden drilling programme.

Table 1. Summary of best intersections from the Mbe trenching programme completed in 2024. Results in bold are greater than 1g/t Au

Figure 2. Mineralised intervals from both Phase 1 and Phase 2 Infill trenching at MB01-S over gold-in-soil anomalies and superimposed on Maxar satellite image background.

The Company today reports that a maiden diamond drilling programme is now underway at MB01-S for a planned 6,590m in 24 holes. Drilling fence lines are oriented E-W, which is considered, by the Oriole team and also independent structural consultant SEMS Exploration, to be the optimal orientation to capture the two key structural trends at MB01, which are believed to be mineralised conjugate fault/fracture sets oriented trending towards NNE-SWW and NNW-SSE, and ENE-WSW and ESE-WSW (see announcement dated 12 November 2024).

The majority of holes are currently planned to be drilled towards the east (090˚). However, the initial four drill holes will be scissored pairs, with MBDD001 and MBDD003 drilled towards the east (090˚), and MBDD002 and MBDD004 towards the west (270˚), to ascertain the ideal azimuth to ensure an optimal intersection of the aforementioned structural orientations.

MB01-N is also an important target for the Company, and a review of the 450m-long corridor of mineralisation will be considered later in the field season.