Oriole Resources upbeat on progress at Senala project

West Africa-focussed exploration company Oriole Resources updated the market on the Senala project in Senegal on Monday, where its joint venture partner Iamgold had the option to spend up to $8m (£5.77m) to earn a 70% interest.

The AIM-traded firm said Iamgold was currently in the fourth year of that earn-in.

On 29 July, it announced that Iamgold had completed its first phase drilling programme at the Faré prospect, for 689.50 metres of diamond drilling in two holes, and 4,854 metres of reverse circulation drilling in 42 holes.

The second phase programme had also been partially completed at the Madina Bafé prospect, for a further 493 metres of diamond drilling in three holes, and 3,111 metres of a planned 5,000 metres of reverse circulation drilling.

Oriole posted the full diamond drilling results for Faré and Madina Bafé on Monday, with best results of up to 70 metres grading at 1.46 grams of gold per tonne, and 10 metres grading at 1.69 grams per tonne, respectively.

Results for 38 holes from the reverse circulation programme at Faré had also been received, with the company currently undertaking its usual validation checks ahead of their release.

“We are delighted to see the results from the latest exploration programmes carried out at the Senala licence by our partner Iamgold,” said chief executive officer Tim Livesey.

“At Faré, results from the two diamond holes drilled to test the main Faré South anomaly support previous drilling carried out by our own team between 2013 and 2014.

“We hope that the information from these two confirmatory diamond intersections will take us one step closer to developing a maiden resource at Faré South which, based on the wide zones of near-surface gold mineralisation, we believe would lend itself well to open pit mining.”

Livesey said that of note, that mineralisation was open at depth.

He added that at Faré North and Faré Far South, there were two additional anomalies within the 6.5 kilometre Faré trend, with the company set to report the results of the recent reverse circulation drilling programme shortly.

“These RC holes were targeting evidence of gold mineralisation identified previously by our own field work, and by Iamgold’s air core drilling in 2020.

“Continued positive results from Faré reconfirms our belief that this prospect, with its three distinct, yet neighbouring zones of mineralisation, has the opportunity to host a stand-alone resource and ultimately the potential to host a mine development.

“These initial diamond drill results from the ongoing programme at Madina Bafé also provide encouragement for the potential of that prospect to host a satellite deposit for the nearby Boto mine development project.”

At 1348 BST, shares in Oriole Resources were up 9.98% at 0.52p.