Aim-listed exploration company Oriole Resources, in the last quarter of 2021, completed soil sampling over the southwest region of the Wapouzé licence as well as trenching over previously-identified soil anomalies at the Bataol zone in the east.

The Wapouzé gold project, in Cameroon, is 90%-owned by Oriole and recent results include a best trenching interval of two metres grading 4.06 g/t gold.

Highlights of the project include the completion of five trenches for a total of 2 524 m at the Bataol zone which have all returned anomalous gold.

“We are continuing to gain an understanding of the gold mineralised systems at Wapouzé and these recent soil and trenching results add to that knowledge, with previous sampling at the project identifying extensive surface anomalies, with some significant gold grades in soils,” said CEO Tim Livesey.

The Wapouzé project is located 20 km to the north of Oriole’s Bibemi project and soil sampling programmes undertaken in 2019 identified multiple gold-in-soil anomalies within the Bataol zone in the north-east, including an 8-km-long north-east-trending anomaly, which returned up to 0.53 g/t gold and a parallel 2.8-km-long anomaly.

The company completed a 150 m pilot trenching programme for three trenches across a small portion of the 8-km-long anomaly in the first quarter of last year. However, the programme did not return any significant intersections. Hence, a further five trenches were completed for 2 524 m in the fourth quarter.

Four of the trenches were planned to test the anomaly either side of the pilot trenches at a regional spacing of 500 m to one kilometre, while the fifth trench was designed to test the centre of the parallel 2.8-km-long anomaly. All trenches were orientated towards 130°.

The results reported have confirmed anomalous gold in all trenches, with a best intersection of 2.00 m grading 4.06 g/t gold reported in WPT007. The mineralisation is associated with quartz veinlets, typically hosted by sedimentary schists.

Oriole also completed soil sampling over the south-western extent of the licences.

Results for a total 947 samples include a best grade of 141 parts per billion (ppb) gold, with 14 samples assaying 20 ppb or more and 29 samples reporting above the 10 ppb threshold. While the data has confirmed continuation of the structural regime to the south-west, the company notes that the anomalism is not well defined, and that this perhaps reflects the lack of competent host rock in the vicinity.

Quality assurance and quality control data for both the soil and trench samples are considered to be within acceptable ranges. The Oriole team will review all datasets ahead of designing further work programmes.

“As we better understand the local geology and the likely influences of structure on the mineralisation here, as at Bibemi to the south, the team continues to develop the exploration programme with a view to identifying drill targets,” concluded Livesey.