LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - West Africa-focussed exploration company Oriole Resources updated the market on its 90%-owned Bibemi gold project in Cameroon on Monday.

The AIM-traded firm said that to date, four main prospects had been identified at the project, with the majority of drilling focussed on a one kilometre section at the Bakassi Zone 1 prospect.

Drilling at the prospect had delivered "encouraging" near-surface intervals, including 6.5 metres grading 3.92 grams of gold per tonne, 9.2 metres grading 1.31 grams per tonne, and 5.2 metres grading 1.97 grams per tonne.

It said on Monday that the phase four diamond drilling programme had now started at Bakassi Zone 1, which would comprise an initial 550 metres of drilling, primarily focussed on testing the sub-horizontal extensional quartz veins that were believed to be a "strong control" on the location of gold within the shear corridor.

The results would be used to update the company's three-dimensional geological and mineralisation model for the prospect.

Expansion of the programme would be subject to ongoing geological observations, the board added.

A geomagnetic survey was recently completed across the four key prospects at Bibemi, Oriole added, with an interpretation of the results currently underway.

A series of technical studies were also underway to support a two-year extension of the Bibemi licence, and a report would be submitted in the third quarter to support the process.

"We're pleased to be drilling again at the Bakassi Zone 1 prospect within the Bibemi licence," said chief executive officer Tim Livesey.

"We have aggressively progressed our programmes at the project and are excited to be moving toward a clearer definition of the mineralising systems.

"Structural studies carried out previously identify these cross-cutting, sub-horizontal structures as being important for controlling the location of higher-grade intervals within the shear corridor."

Livesey said the programme offered the potential for "significant volumetric increase" to the known system, and so the firm was looking forward to sharing the findings from the programme with the market as they became available.

"At the Lawa East prospect, similar sub-horizontal structures have been observed in relation to high-grade mineralisation including 0.80m grading 27.90 grams of gold per tonne, which included a quartz-tourmaline vein with visible gold."

At 1227 BST, shares in Oriole Resources were down 2.29% at 0.24p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.

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