Orion Minerals Limited announced that analytical results have confirmed the discovery of a new VMS zinc-copper-bearing massive sulphide body at the Ayoba Prospect, located just 5.3km south-west of the Company's Prieska Zinc-Copper Project (Prieska Project or Prieska Deposit) in the northern Cape region of South Africa. The discovery comes as Orion's near-mine exploration program continues to ramp up, with the recent completion of a helicopter-borne magnetic and electro-magnetic survey (AEM or SkyTEMTM) over the Prospecting Rights of Repli, Doonies Pan (Repli), Vardocube and Bartorax areas on 9 December 2018. The Ayoba discovery hole, OAXD002, was drilled 3.5km south of the Prieska Project's Hutchings Shaft and the Prieska Mineral Resource of 30Mt @ 3.7% Zn and 1.2% Cu. It is both the first exploration hole to be drilled as part of the Company's near-mine exploration project and the first hole to test for new mineralisation surrounding the historical Prieska Copper Mine in more than 36 years. Diamond drill hole OAXD002 tested a fixed-loop electro magnetic plate (FLEM) and intersected 9.50m of massive sulphide mineralisation at 0.93% Zn, 0.63% Cu, 0.22g/t Au and 2g/t Ag from a down-hole depth of 654.00m. This mineralisation includes a high-grade zone of 1.5m grading 4.98% Zn, 0.89% Cu, 0.26% Au and 3g/t Ag from a down-hole depth of 654.50m. Diamond drill hole OAXD002_D1, a deflection (wedge hole) drilled from OAXD002, has confirmed the massive sulphide mineralisation up-dip of OAXD002. The hole intersected 7.13m of massive sulphide mineralisation at 1.44% Zn, 0.66% Cu, 0.34g/t Au and 2g/t Ag from a down-hole depth of 654.87m. This intersection included a high-grade interval of 0.88m at 11.20% Zn, 0.89% Cu, 0.35g/t Au and 4g/t Ag, from a down-hole depth of 654.87m, which correlates with the zone of high-grade zinc intersected in OAXD002. The current structural interpretation shows that the newly-discovered mineralisation, as well as the Annex and Prieska Deposits, all occur on the same stratigraphic horizon. This conforms to Orion's exploration model of VMS deposits clustering around giant VMS deposits like the Prieska Deposit, to form VMS camps. The nearby Annex VMS lens, located 1,600m to the east, yielded peak drill results of 4.28m at 0.34% Zn and 2.88% Cu (hole VAX26), with the copper-dominant mineralisation intersected typical of an intersection more proximal to a vent in that cell. Annex and Ayoba are interpreted to be two cells within a sub-cluster, close to the large Prieska VMS Deposit. The modelled FLEM conductor at Ayoba, tested by holes OAXD002 and OAXD002_D1, has a strike length of 1.1km and extends down-dip to at least 800m below surface and the vertical depth to the top of the conductor is 500m. Beyond this conductor, the key stratigraphic horizon remains untested by geophysics or drilling for a further 1km along strike to the western tenement boundary. Approximately 1km west-northwest of the Ayoba FLEM anomaly, the newly acquired magnetic data from the SkyTEMTM survey has identified a fold closure in the target stratigraphy.