Gateway fires up three-rig gold hunt at WA Yandal project

Gateway Mining has fired up the reverse circulation (RC) drill rigs at its Yandal gold project near Wiluna in Western Australia’s prolific Yandal Greenstone Belt.

The new drilling program marks a notable shift in its exploration strategy, moving from a highly successful 10-month aircore program that outlined kilometre-scale gold footprints to a new campaign to determine the scale of its growing pipeline of gold prospects.

One RC rig is already turning at the company’s Haflinger prospect, a major new find along the Celia Shear in the southern part of the Yandal project. The first holes are following up a recent aircore discovery hole that returned 64 metres at 1.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 56m, including 24m at 2.4g/t gold.

The drilling is targeting the shallow mineralisation for the first time in fresh rock to sniff out gold-bearing structures capable of underpinning future resources. Success would indicate the shallow mineralisation is part of a much larger gold system at depth.

‘It promises to be a very exciting period coming up for Gateway as we begin to delineate the scale of what we’re sitting on at Yandal.’

Once work at Haflinger is complete, the rig will move south-west to the Great Western prospect on the Great Western Shear, where previous drilling outlined a 4km-long gold-mineralised dolerite beneath bottom-of-hole aircore intercepts. It also lit up a promising epithermal-style gold-silver system that has so far been only lightly tested in fresh rock.

Meanwhile, a second RC rig is due on site next week to kick off drilling at the Cowza and Celia South prospects along the 40km-long Celia Shear south of the Horse Well gold camp.

Initial drilling will target the key mafic-intermediate contact zones. That same contact also hosts high-grade mineralisation at Gateway’s nearby Horse Well gold camp and Northern Star Resources’ nearby Millrose deposit, making it a compelling target for follow-up drilling.

Recent aircore highlights included 10 metres at 2.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 66m, including 2m at 9.2g/t gold at Celia South and 4m at 4.7g/t gold from 96m, including 1m at 17.4g/t gold at Cowza.

Gateway Mining chief executive officer Richard Pugh said: “Both rigs are focused on scoping out the extents of the mineralised footprints at our key targets in fresh rock. Depending on how this drilling proceeds, the Company may elect to add an additional rig this quarter to aid in planning for future resource definition/growth drilling.”

Further aircore results from Cowza, Cowza North and Ward are expected shortly before the aircore program concludes at the end of July. They will feed more targets into the expanding RC campaign as Gateway continues to unlock the broader Yandal project.

The additional drilling will help determine which of the growing number of discoveries warrant resource definition and growth drilling later this year. A potential third rig could also accelerate follow-up work across the remaining prospects.

Across a commanding 1,780-square-kilometre Yandal landholding that hosts almost 100 kilometres of prospective gold trends, Gateway continues to validate a tried-and-tested geological recipe in which favourable mafic and intermediate volcanic rocks intersect major regional shears and structural flexures.

The project sits on the eastern flank of Western Australia’s prolific Yandal Greenstone Belt, home to world-class deposits such as Northern Star Resources’ Jundee operation. Gateway already hosts a 400,400-ounce gold resource centred on the Dusk ’til Dawn deposit and Horse Well Gold Camp.

Haflinger, the focus of much of the drilling this time round, sits between those resource centres, while the Great Western prospect lies along a parallel western structural corridor and Celia South and Cowza are positioned farther south on the fertile Celia Shear. All four prospects are in the frame to add to that inventory. Earlier discoveries at Rubicon, Hummer, Mustang and Ward could provide further resource growth opportunities across the broader Yandal project.

Gold prices remain at historically elevated levels, continuing to favour explorers delivering new discoveries and resource growth, particularly in tier-one jurisdictions such as Western Australia.

Backed by $15.7M in cash and $5.6M in liquid ASX securities at the end of the March quarter, Gateway is well funded to keep the drill rigs turning as it works to convert its growing pipeline of discoveries into a district-scale gold asset in one of Australia’s premier gold belts.

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