(Alliance News) - Oriole Resources PLC on Friday confirmed a second earn-in at its licences in north Cameroon.

Shares in Oriole were up 8.9% at 0.28 pence each in London on Friday morning.

In November, the west Africa-focused gold exploration company signed a heads of terms deal with

BCM International Ltd, a Ghana-based mining and civil contractor, relating to earn-ins at its Cameroonian Bibemi and Mbe gold projects. Oriole currently holds a 93% and 90% stake in the projects, respectively.

In early January, the company inked an earn-in agreement with BCM for the Bibemi project, and has now signed a definitive earn-in for Mbe. The company previously identified a 12 kilometre-long gold-in-soils anomaly at Mbe, which had delivered "several zones of significant surface gold mineralisation".

In exchange for a 50% interest in Mbe, BCM will provide a USD1 million signature payment, alongside USD4 million in exploration costs and future success-based payments. USD50,000 of the signature payment has been received in advance by Oriole, and the company said that the remainder and earn-in agreement terms remain conditional on BCM completing its due-diligence review of Mbe before the end of January.

Combined with the Bibemi earn-in, Oriole will receive a total of USD1.5 million in signature payments and USD8 million in exploration costs and future payments for the two north-Cameroonian prospects.

Commenting on the announcement, Chief Executive Officer Tim Livesey said: With the signing of this second earn in agreement with BCM, we look forward to advancing the exploration at the Mbe licence in parallel with our resource expansion work at Bibemi.

"Since Oriole was granted its package of eight contiguous licences in central Cameroon back in February 2021, we have advanced with great success, identifying a large number of significant gold anomalies in what we suggest could be a corridor of mineralisation some 75 kilometres-long. Prior to our licence application, this area was open ground and indicates the huge opportunity Cameroon has for new discoveries."

By Hugh Cameron, Alliance News reporter

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