Oriole Resources PLC provided an exploration update for its 80%-owned Mbe gold project in Cameroon ('Mbe' or the 'Project'). Highlights: In January, Oriole signed a definitive earn-in agreement with BCM International Limited ('BCM') to invest up to USD 4 million in exploration at Mbe, with BCM awarded a 10% beneficial interest in the Project following receipt of the full USD 1 million signature payment and now earning up to an additional 40% interest;  Work to date has focused on the main 3-kilometre ('km') long MB-01 target, where up to 256.74 grammes per tonne ('g/t') gold ('Au') and 25.16 g/t Au has been returned from outcrop sampling and pit sampling respectively; A programme of infill soil sampling has now been completed at MB-01, at a sample spacing of 100 metres ('m') x 25m, for a total of4,537 samples (including QAQC). Results are expected later this quarter and will be used to finalise a follow-up trenching programme that is also planned to commence in second quarter; Processing and ground-truthing of ground geophysical data has found evidence of further sets of sub-cropping veins and their alteration haloes at MB-01, suggesting that the overall shear zone at MB-01 could be up to 2km wide and therefore offering significant potential to expand the scale of the targets; The interpretation has also identified two further corridors, MB_Target A and MB_Target B, which are located east of, and are broadly parallel to, the existing MB-01 zone, offering the potential to deliver additional prospects at Mbe; A second infill soil sampling programme (100m x 50m spacing) has commenced over the wider 12.5km-long zone of soil anomalism at Mbe, which captures these target areas, and is currently approximately 50% complete. Mbe (312km) is an early-stage project located within the broader 2,266km2 'Eastern CLP' package of contiguous gold-focussed licences in central Cameroon.

In 2022, Oriole completed semi-regional soil sampling (400m by 200m spacing) that identified a c.12.5km-long zone of gold-in-soil anomalism, a series of en-echelon zones that trend east-northeast. Follow-up work during 2023 identified a cross-cutting (northeast-trending) 3km-long geological zone, MB-01, containing areas of high-grade gold mineralisation within an intensely altered felsic unit. Results of up to 134.10 g/t Au were returned from surface samples and artisanal workings.

On 19 January 2024, the Company signed adefinitive earn-in agreement with BCM, whereby BCMis currently earning up to a 50% interest in return for USD 1 million in signature payments, which has already been received, USD 4 million in exploration funding and future resource-linked success-based payments. BCM's due-diligence review over the MB-01 target returned 155 out of 639 samples grading equal or greater than ("=") 1 g/t Au, 13 of which have graded =10 g/t Au. Of these higher-grading samples, best results include 256.74 g/t, 133.44 g/t, 75.09 g/t, 33.66 g/t and 22.89 g/t Au from outcrop sampling, and 25.16 g/t, 23.97 g/t, 9.98 g/t, and 8.75 g/t Au from pit sampling.

A further 232 samples graded between 0.20 and 0.99 g/t Au.   The team has recently completed structural mapping of the pits (5-10m deep and exclusively dug by artisanal miners) and identified three groups of shear-related structures, all of which appear to be associated with gold mineralisation: S1 - NNE-SSW trending, steeply dipping to the NW or SE -   S2 - NE-SW to ENE-WSW trending, variable dips to the N or S -  S3 - NW-SE to NNE-SSE trending, predominantly steeply dipping to the SW. The overall trend of the S1 group corresponds to the trend of the MB-01 target, which sits within the broader 12.5km-long gold-in-soil anomalism, which corresponds to the S2 group.

The third group, S3, is perpendicular to S2 and could represent a conjugate component of the system. Infill soil sampling at a sample spacing of 100m x 25m, has now been completed across the MB-01 target area, for a total of 4,537 samples (including QAQC), and results are expected later this quarter. The results will inform a trenching programme across the MB-01 prospect, which is planned to commence later in second quarter.