Aim-listed Oriole Resources has advanced about 30% with a maiden drilling programme over a target at the Mbe gold project, in Cameroon, having drilled 2 200 m across seven holes.

Oriole owns 90% of the Mbe project, which is one of five licences in which the company has an interest in the district-scale Central Licence Package in the country.

Its partner, BCM International, currently owns a 10% interest in Mbe, with the option to own up to 40% of the project if the company spends $4-million on exploration.

The maiden drilling programme that is under way at the MB01-S target is fully funded and aims to follow up on prior soil, rock chip and trench sampling work.

The drilling has, so far, shown more than 30 gold mineralisation intersections, with one particular hole intersecting more than 60 m of recurrent gold mineralisation.

Some of the discoveries so far include 4.24 m of gold grading 7.7 g/t from 146 m; 1.7 m of gold grading 6.1 g/t from 59.5 m; 8 m of gold grading 1.06 g/t from 55 m; 1 m of gold grading 1.2 g/t from 3.2 m; and 14 m of gold grading 0.8 g/t from 68 m.

Oriole reports that the MBDD003 hole has returned gold mineralisation throughout the hole, with an average grade of 0.48 g/t over the first 150 m. Notably, the company says the longest and highest grade intervals within this hole were intersected at shallower depth than expected, mostly being within 115 m vertical depth from surface. 

The MBDD002 hole previously returned recurrent mineralisation over more than 80 m at an average grade of 0.25 g/t.

“Not only has hole MDBB003 intersected wide zones of lower grade gold, it has also intersected a highest grade interval of 4.24 m grading 7.70 g/t gold. The high number of intersections received to date in the maiden programme is truly exciting,” says Oriole CEO Martin Rosser.

The company explains that it appears, generally, that the north-northwest trending structures are delivering narrower but higher grade gold intervals, which reflects the soil sampling geochemistry done previously.

Some of the structures are much steeper than others intersected and appear to have intersected the mineralisation sub-perpendicular rather than down-dip as Oriole anticipated.

This structural complexity justified a scissor hole approach, which involved drilling a new hole in the opposite direction to the orientation of the old hole, with further assessment in this regard being underway.

With the system appearing less dilational along certain areas, it explains why drill hole MBDD004 had fewer mineralised intersections.

Rosser adds that, while the company used two pairs of scissor holes to provide key geological structural information and expected MBDD004 to contain higher grades of gold mineralisation, the MBDD003 hole has proven to be the higher-grade intersection.

“The results continue to confirm the potential for higher-grade zones of mineralisation within broader, lower-grade envelopes and the system is now confirmed over a strike length of 200 m, being the distance between two fence lines drilled to date, and a vertical depth of about 290 m,” he says.

Oriole is progressing drilling of two more holes – MBDD005-006 and MBDD007 – with results expected to be reported in the second quarter.

The drilling will ultimately inform further drilling parameters and the Mbe geological model.