Aim-listed Oriole Resources’ subsidiary, Oriole Cameroon, and its partner, Reservoir Minerals Cameroon, have completed the package-wide mapping and stream programme over the five easternmost licences of its joint venture project in Cameroon, with results anticipated in the third quarter of the year.

A total of 371 samples relating to the Niambaram and Tenekou licences have been sent to Bureau Veritas for gold and multi-element analysis, the miner said in a statement on August 2.

A further 503 samples have been prepped and will be dispatched to Bureau Veritas shortly.

The exploration programme has now been paused for the rainy season and will continue over the remaining three licences in the fourth quarter.

The companies were issued a 3 592 km² package in central Cameroon earlier this year, which cover paleo-proterozoic to pan-African age rocks and are highly prospective for orogenic-style gold mineralisation.

Overall, the programme is now 64% complete, with 874 samples taken over Oriole Cameroon’s five licences in the east of the package.

Oriole Resources CEO Tim Livesey said the central licence package “holds all the indicators of a new gold district, sitting within an area of appropriate host geology, with respect to age, metamorphic grade and alteration, and importantly being cross-cut by deep seated crustal structures that are crucial for the emplacement of gold in orogenic systems”. 

He enthused that historical sampling, which is evidenced by more recent artisanal activity, indicated that it “has the potential to host gold”, so the miner is “understandably eager” to see the results of this programme. 

“Grassroots exploration doesn’t come any simpler than this, with rapid and systematic field work allowing us to start defining and ranking targets for further investigation during the next field season,” Livesey commented.