Oriole Resources PLC (AIM:ORR) said it has delivered a maiden inferred mineral resource for Bakassi Zone 1 in Cameroon, amounting to 305,000 ounces of gold grading 2.19 grammes per tonne.
Bakassi is part of Oriole’s larger, 90%-owned Bibemi gold project. The entire resource has been defined within the limit of a US$1,800 per ounce gold price pit shell.
The resource has been modelled over a strike length of 1,220 metres and to a depth of 260 metres below surface, using a cut-off grade of 0.30 grams per tonne gold.
The remaining target, not including the resource blocks, is estimated to be between 1.5mln and 2.2mln million tonnes at grades ranging from 1.10 to 2.10 grams for between an additional 53,000 and 148,000 ounces of gold.
But both estimates remain open at depth and along strike to the northeast, and there exists significant potential to expand the resource at Bakassi Zone 1 and to identify additional resources at the other three prospects on the licence, Bakassi Zone 2, Lawa West and Lawa East, which are all located within a few kilometres of Bakassi Zone 1, the company said.
An infill geophysics programme is planned for the first half of 2023 to aid drill targeting at the remaining three prospects on the Bibemi licence as well as future resource-expansion activities, it added.
In a statement, Oriole’s chief executive Tim Livesey spoke of "an excellent early result from the past season's drilling at the Bakassi Zone 1 prospect on our Bibemi licence in Cameroon, which we believe is the first-ever JORC mineral resource estimate for orogenic gold in Cameroon.”