LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Oriole Resources announced a completion agreement with BCM International on Wednesday, covering its earn-in arrangements on the Bibemi and Mbe gold projects in Cameroon, securing funding for a new drilling programme at Mbe-North and further test work at Bibemi.
Under the agreement, BCM will pay Oriole $0.9m in three monthly instalments starting in November and contribute a further $0.3m toward the cost of a 2,950-metre maiden diamond drilling programme at the MB01-N target.

The AIM-traded firm said the payments and drilling spend would complete BCM's earn-in obligations and give it a 50% interest in both projects.

It said the fully funded MB01-N programme was expected to begin in December,and aimed to convert an exploration target of between 370,000 and 605,000 ounces of gold into a JORC-compliant resource.

The campaign followed Oriole's recent maiden resource estimate at the nearby MB01-S deposit, which totalled 870,000 ounces of contained gold.

Drilling at MB01-N was due to finish in late March 2026.

"Having recently reported the excellent maiden JORC resource at MB01-S of 870,000oz of contained gold, we are delighted that, with our partner BCM, we will be moving swiftly to starting the maiden drilling of MB01-N, which has a significant JORC exploration target range with a median of 488,000 ounces of contained gold," said chief executive Martin Rosser.

"In addition, the completion agreement with BCM will mean that the next phase of important mineralogical and metallurgical testwork on selected Bibemi representative samples can commence once they are delivered to the independent testing laboratory.

"Concurrently, we will intensify the exploitation licence application negotiations with the Cameroon government."

Oriole said part of the BCM payments would be used to fund metallurgical testing at Bibemi, while the rest would support ongoing administrative costs and exploration at its Pokor and Ndom Eastern licences, which lie adjacent to Mbe but are outside the BCM partnership.

The company reported a cash balance of £0.64m as of 31 October.

At 1627 GMT, shares in Oriole Resources were up 1.92% at 0.27p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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