Oriole Resources: Q&A in advance of Shareholders General Meeting

0:05 Hi, everyone. Welcome to Oriel Resources live Q&A session today, hosted by 6. We're joined today by John McGloin, non-executive chairman, Tim Livesy, chief executive officer, Bob Spenton, chief financial officer. We're here to answer your questions in advance of the shareholder general meeting held next Tuesday, October 27th.

0:30 As a reminder, you can submit your questions in the Q&A panel in the right-hand side of the screen. Without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to John to kick things off. Thanks, Jane. And thank you, everyone, for attending this virtual session question and answers in advance of the general meeting scheduled for the 27th of October. The general meeting has been called to put resolutions to the members of the company which if passed would allow the company to complete a 1.87 million fundraising which we announced on the 7th of October. It's become clear to us that the industry is becoming resource challenged through a lack of exploration and discovery, so our move into new frontiers is timely and we believe our approach offers an exciting opportunity to be part of a growth phase in the exploration industry.

1:16 The fundraiser is intended to primarily support a maiden drilling campaign at Bibimi in Cameroon, where our early stage exploration work during 2018 and 2019 has identified excellent rock chip grades of up to 135 grams per tonne gold and encouraging trenching results, including 9 metres at 3.14 grams per tonne gold. It's the board's view that these results drive the need for drilling to understand the vertical extension of the mineralisation, which is an evidence of a significant strike length, which we believe is in excess of 5 kilometres. It's also the board's view that the early stage expirations frequently is not frequently reflected in a company's market value. We believe the drilling campaign is the natural next step in this expiration progress, and we believe will assist us in supporting and enhancing our position of the market.

2:07 Consequently, we're asking shareholders to support the resolution to enable advancement of the exploration programme. Unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions, the GM has to be a closed meeting. But in order to encourage discussion with shareholders, we've arranged this virtual Q&A session in advance of the meeting to take any questions you may have. We value the support of all our investors and we have endeavoured to give access to all through the use of the Investor Lounge platform.

2:34 As a reminder, the deadline for the proxy votes is 10am on Sunday 25th October. Thank you to all those who have pre-submitted questions and we'll start by answering some of those. But please feel free to ask further questions through the platform. I'll now hand back to Jane to begin the question and answer session. Thank you, John. So as John mentioned, we do have some pre-submitted questions today, So let's kick things off with some of those. For the first question, it reads, does the pricing price now look cheap given the recent share price rise?

3:13 Well, do you want me to pass over to you? Yes. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, the board's view is actually that the share price rise is being driven by the successful placing. As John mentioned, early stage exploration results, which we've had excellent results at Bimini, is frequently not reflected in the company's market cap. And it's not reflected until we get drilling. So having the money and the drill rig in place, the market is recognizing that we're about to drive some shareholder value, and that drilling is being anticipated in the share price rise.

3:54 Thank you Bob. Our next question I'm sure is one that you get very often. It reads, when can we expect results from the exploration programs in Cameroon? Thanks Jen. Yeah, Cameroon is newly kicked off. We've done, recently had a renewal on both the Bibbimi and Wapusi licenses, which is, which has opened up our ability to now continue investing into them. We didn't want to continue spending on them until that renewal had been finalised.

4:29 The rig is being mobilised and we have obviously a period of mobilisation. We're building the camp at the moment for the team to be based in close to Bivermey and then we'll get drilling, hopefully towards the end of the next month. They are a series of short holds, so the turnaround time on the drilling should be quite short, but obviously we then have to get the asset results back. So we would anticipate most likely Q1 2021 from the drilling. And we'll then have it news flow consistently as the rig moves through that program.

5:16 Thanks, Tim. And speaking of BIMMI, what value do you attribute to the drilling campaign at Bitmeat and what value will it bring to the asset?

5:29 Well, you know, As has already been mentioned by John in the opening statement there, a lot of exploration companies, junior companies like us, working at the very high-risk end of the business, really don't typically see a reflection in the share price, in the market cap value until they have drill results in. The opportunity, despite the fact we've had extensive positive results from trenching and rock chipping and mapping and soil sampling also for Koozai, It's really the truth machine, the drill rig is what everybody is looking for. That's not only the investors, it's also other companies looking at us from the outside. So, it's hard to put a value on a good drill intersection, but the key thing is that it's proving that verticality to these systems, which will take us towards the next step of exploration, hopefully into identifying a resource.

6:35 Thanks, Tim. Here's a live question from Nathan.

6:38 He says, would it be fair to say that the asset disposal program has not delivered the results the board expected? The company has continually told shareholders over the last 6 to 9 months that dilution would be kept to a minimum. And all of a sudden, there is a 50% dilution. Could you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, I'll take that question, Jane. Thanks, Tom. I think as we've previously discussed,

7:04 we worked really hard through lockdown on a big asset disposal deal that because 2 partners exercised their contractual ROFAs, the larger deal fell away. So while we continue to look at asset realisation as a means of funding programmes, the reality is the timing is uncertain, the results are uncertain, and we've got an eight-month exploration window in Cameroon that the board decided it was more important to be busy than wait around to maybe realise an asset somewhere down the line. So

7:42 we've pushed ahead with the raise and I think the market has vindicated that with the recent share price rise after said raise. Thanks, Bob. Here's another question from one of our members of the audience today. They ask, when will there be news regarding IAMGOLD and Sinala?

8:10 Very good question. IAMGOLD in their own releases earlier this year and late last year indicated they'd have a decision on BOLTO, the neighboring mine development project in the second half of this year. Now, we do know they've been continuing to spend on early stage works at BOLTO, preparation for access routes, and also some of the early stage positions for project development have been hired or been out for hiring. So we don't control unfortunately the program at Sonala itself on our license. Irongold by the terms of reference of the joint venture, Iron Gold dictate the programme there and obviously fund it in 100% basis.

9:01 We have drilling underway at the northern target, Faray. That program was approved in June this year. Obviously that would have been around about the wet season time. So mobilization during the wet season is pretty limited in that area. But the drilling program, 10,000 meter air core program will be ongoing through the rest of this year. And we will start to see results

9:28 coming back from Irongold as they progress that program. And typically there's a little bit of a delay from Irongold. They need to go through their QAQC processes and procedures before they release the data to us. They have to make sure the data is acceptable in their standards before they give it to us. And then as soon as we receive it, we have to do our own validation, because we are putting it out under our own QP in Oriol. So there's a slight delay there, but it'll get out to the market as soon as we're able to. Realistically, we were hoping to see something in Q4. I realize we're now in Q4, but Q4 lasts until the 31st of December, so there's plenty of time still left.

10:17 If it drives over into Q1 2021, it wouldn't surprise me. It's a 10,000 metre program, so obviously there's going to be news flow once it starts and a rollout over a couple of months.

10:33 Thanks, Tim. Our next question is, the junior explorers AIM market is currently fairly hot. Do you think that Oriol is currently undervalued or even overlooked by the market? Well, I'll say yes, I think it's undervalued and overlooked, but I'll pass it on to Bob for a more technical answer. I'm not sure about technical, but I think if anyone looked at the number of trades that have gone through our share Monday, Tuesday and Friday last week, it's difficult to say we're overlooked anymore.

11:10 We come back to the answer before really, the market now recognises we've got the cash, the jewellery going through, the license and great targets at Bivermee and people have got interested in it and that's driving the share price. I think perhaps to add to that, you know, although we are still awaiting results from Sonala and from Iron Gold. As disappointed as we all may be that those results are not forthcoming right now, it doesn't change the fact that Sonala license is sitting there. We were able last year to renew it for a further 10 years, So it's really given us some stability on that licence. And that core value in Sonala is not going away.

11:57 The mineralisation that's been identified to date is still there. If you do a comparison to some of our neighbouring companies and you do a comparison based on some of the recent drill intercepts, particularly in the north near to our Farae target, you'll see that our results from our own program in 2016 were extremely similar, long, high-grade results at far A. So the value in Sonoma still underpins a lot of this. So I think, yes, it is fair to say the value was not recognised and perhaps now is being, which is why we're seeing this recent uplift. Excellent, thanks Tim and thanks Bob. And here's another question from Nathan.

12:45 He asks, it's been mentioned that the company is looking at new projects. So can you elaborate when news of this may come out and what type of projects the company is currently looking at?

12:57 For example, do you want 100 percent ownership or would you enter into that with a partner?

13:05 I'll take this one. I think strategically, we've been on record previously saying that we will keep our eyes open for Gold, Precious and Base Metals. That's where our skill set lies in the African and European time zone. That's a very general area, general statement, obviously, but it really indicates the geographical and the commodity focus that we have as a company, where we think our strengths lie, both in understanding those countries, those areas, continents, and also in the commodities. I'm not going to go into detail about individual deal structures and so on, because we have many people approaching us with projects. We have projects that we ourselves initiate and chase.

13:59 And we have new ground opportunities, such as the 8 licenses under application in Cameroon that we do off our own bat. And in each case, the deal structure will be different. The terms and conditions will be different. So we really very much look at these on a case-by-case basis. All right, thank you very much Tim. And speaking of licenses, when do you expect the remaining licenses in Cameroon to be granted and what exploration do you have planned specifically for those licenses? Well we're hoping they're going to be granted quite soon. You know the licenses are registered on the Cameroonian Cadastre system. We have a submissions in with the Ministry, the submissions have been, taxes have been paid on them and so on. They've been through the process and through the various stages of approval.

15:00 We're just waiting for the final notification. I'm actually going out to Cameroon next month, COVID willing, to meet with the ministry and to hopefully finalise some steps on some of the other work around Bimini and Wapusi. So, you know, hopefully we'll get some news before the end of the year, but obviously it's in the hands of the ministry.

15:27 As for the work programs, it's a very simple first pass. These are areas that are, we have 3500 square kilometres under application, and it's what we believe to be a district scale package. So the first pass programme in that would be some additional remote sensing work, remote targeting work, structural interpretation, that sort of thing, some geological mapping and a program of extensive reconnaissance stream sediment sampling, which will help us to focus on which of the sediment basins in those 8 licenses have the potential for carrying gold. And that will really focus our team to sort of get into the highest most prospective areas as soon as possible.

16:21 That really comes down to a few couple of months of stream sediment sampling. It's boots on the ground work, geologist and the field crew out taking samples and moving through the dry season. So it's not a very difficult program. It should be reasonably quick. It's also quite a cheap program. And we would hope to come out of that at the end of the dry season next year with a selection of target areas for follow-up. Thanks Tim. These are related to the asset realization programs, is that right? I'm sorry, which?

17:10 Our next question is about the asset realization program. What do you get from them and what assets in the portfolio you're looking for transactions for? Yeah, as I mentioned earlier to an earlier question, I mean we are looking at realising value from all of the Turkish and East African assets. It's a long process in many ways with an uncertain outcome, but all of them are actively being looked at to try and bring value back. Yeah, I mean the assets themselves, you know, we've stated a couple of times we have non-core assets. So anything that we consider to be non-core is we want to maximize the value from.

18:00 And then we can funnel that income back into exploration on the ground. Got it. Thank you very much, Tim and Bob. Here's a question from James. He's asking about the progress on the Turkish legal disputes. Bob again. I'll take that. I suspect what James is talking about is, as is well known, we're pursuing through the courts, total of $1.4 million owed by former partners in Turkey from the history of the company. 1 million is from a company called MTF and that is stuck behind a case that they need to win to have the funds to pay us effectively. So Turkish justice moves quite slowly and we would expect to see some progress during this, in the run up to the end of the year.

19:00 But we don't rely on that money coming in very quickly. It'll be one of those things that all of a sudden it'll arrive, I guess, because they need to get that case out of the way first. The other one is maybe closer, Maybe not. It's 425,000 of a success-based payment. Our partner has already paid $75,000 of it. They've acknowledged the amount was payable. They've made payments against it, and then they stopped paying. We are currently going through a mediation process in the Turkish courts. And so far there's been no indication that anybody disagrees with the fact we wrote this money. Very clearly they've offered to pay it in certain ways that are unacceptable to us in certain timescales.

19:52 And we're just working through, can we reach a resolution of that that brings some money in at this moment in time? It may be we end up going all the way to Carl, which could take a few years. It may be we strike a deal with them within the next couple of weeks, but very hard to tell. Thank you for providing more background on that, Bob. Our next question is from Nathan. He would like you to comment on the security situation in Cameroon. The Foreign Office suggests that there's danger within 40 kilometres of the various borders adjacent to the existing licences. So can you provide a bit more detail on what's going on there? Yeah, certainly. The border areas are flanked as a no-travel zone on the FCO website, Foreign Commonwealth office website, which is really targeted mainly at tourism and that sort of side of things.

20:55 We are aware of security concerns and issues in any border area that we work on in Africa, to be quite frank, and elsewhere in the world. We have in place, through the auspices of a London-based global security company, we have in place processes and procedures to maintain a safe working environment for our staff out at Bibbamy and Wapusi. We don't dismiss risk But if you look at Cameroon historically, particularly this area, all of the activity, this area has been, the exploration here discovered gold first back in 2012 under Reservoir Minerals.

21:45 And All of the exploration in this area is carried on completely unhindered by security issues. When people talk about the Chad security issues, they're really referring to what they call the far north of Cameroon, around Lake Chad itself, which is 300 to 400 kilometres north of us. And that's an area that's much more similar to the Sahel area, open access across Stoney desert and so on. And that's where you're having incursions coming down from, effectively from the north. And these are the groups that are going into Mali in a big way, Burkina Faso and you know, that sort of band.

22:31 So, you know, we are aware that anywhere in West Africa this kind of thing can happen. Mali, we've seen recent evidence. Kinafaso, we've seen, you know, recent tragic events around the mining camps. But where we are operating currently in Cameroon, we believe we have, we're reasonably well buffered from security issues. And even despite that belief, we have got in place very stringent procedures and structures with local gendarmerie providing security, a very strong connection through our local partner and also a very strong connection through the High Commission in the British High Commission in Yohondi and also various links through networks on the ground and through our local security providers here in the UK.

23:28 Thanks, Tim. Our next question is, perhaps in our previous event, our previous summit, you talked a little bit about first mover advantage. It's something that you have mentioned before. Could you explain more detail about the potential and the first move advantage that you have in Cameroon? Certainly, really it's important to understand that Cameroon has been overlooked for probably 20 to 30 years by traditional exploration groups. We had a small resurgence maybe a decade ago, but really the only real high level of activity that we've seen in Cameroon has been alluvial gold dredging in the east of Cameroon, until quite recently When we moved in back in 2018 onto the old reservoir licenses, we put in the expanded license package in central Cameroon in 2019.

24:41 We've seen Aramet, for example, the big French industrial company coming on board last year as well, looking for rutile and other industrial minerals. So we are starting to see people following us in, but because we've had this time in country, we've had the opportunity to get to understand the geology a little bit better, work with the local geology and the geography and understand where the potential may lie. And also to look way back at the historical data from the 1950s and 60s and so on. And with new understanding of the orogenic gold systems and the potential that these mobile belts offer, that's helped us to define target areas in Cameroon that we thought were prospective.

25:28 And we did a big program of this in 2019. We identified a number of areas in Cameroon that we'd like to operate in and we ranked them. We then went on to the mining cadastre, the Cameroon government's mining cadastre system, and looked at the areas that we thought were prospective to see who already had ground there. And lo and behold, our rank 1 and rank 2 target areas with wide open central Cameroon, nobody had pegged any ground there. So we put that large block application in for 8 licences there between ourselves now and Cameroon New Partners. So, you know, part of the advantage is the fact that we've operated there for a few years. We have good relationships with our partner, with the ministry, with the government. So we know how to operate in Cameroon.

26:14 We can operate quite smoothly and quite efficiently. We set up our own Cameroonian subsidiary company last year, set up the bank accounts and all the rest of it in the space of a month or so. Part of it is we understand the geology, so we understand the best target areas to be in. Part of it is that we are currently, and we have been, as far as we are aware, the only aim-listed explorer or the only reasonably modern focused explorer physically active on the ground in Cameroon. We've been exploring there for 2 years. You know, we've advanced Burma significantly, we've advanced Bupusi significantly, and we have the new data package, the new license package in that centre of Cameroon.

27:02 So, you know, we believe we are a few steps ahead of the competition and it is good to see that the competition is now coming in. We welcome it, We're not concerned by it because we think we've got the best areas stitched up already. But, you know, it's always good that to be at the front of the herd when you're in these new areas. And we believe that we will benefit from that and our shareholders will benefit from that as we go through the next couple of years. Thanks Tim. It's good to hear about Oriel Resources first mover advantage. I do believe that those are all the questions that I'm seeing coming in today and we've also gone over all of our pre-submitted questions.

27:51 So I think that we will close the Q&A session here. If you didn't get a chance to submit your questions today, our fellow members of the audience, or if you do think of 1 after the summit, please find more information on the Oriel Resources website. It's orielresources.com and you can also reach out to the team directly at info at orielresources.co.uk and they'll be happy to answer you directly. Now I'm going to pass it back over to John for the final word. Thanks Jane and thank you everyone for attending the session today and just to remind you please make sure that you've submitted your proxy votes by 10 a.m. On Sunday the 25th of October.

28:39 Thank you again, thank you Jane and please feel free to contact us if you have any more questions. Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone. Have a good rest of your day. Thanks. Bye-bye.