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Murray Ward
Gateway Mining has put its foot on the accelerator at its Yandal Gold project in Western Australia, commissioning a second reverse circulation (RC) drill rig to get to grips with its burgeoning Cowza gold discovery.
The move marks a significant step-up in exploration for the company, which has in recent weeks confirmed a continuous, high-grade gold corridor at Cowza stretching over an impressive 3.5 kilometres of strike.
The confirmation came from wide-spaced air-core drilling that demonstrated strong continuity of gold mineralisation along every drill traverse completed to date. Standout intercepts from the shallow drilling include 4 metres grading an eye-catching 11.1 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 72m, 8m at 3.1g/t gold from 76m and 4m at 3.3g/t gold from 80m.
Gateway has clearly pushed its foot on the accelerator in developing the recent discovery. Barely a week after tripling the strike length to 2.5 kilometres, the company has extended Cowza a further kilometre with the discoveryโs strike expanding almost as quickly as the company can drill it.
โThe second rig enables us to test multiple areas simultaneously and rapidly assess the potential scale of the discovery.โ
Gateway Mining chief executive officer Richard Pugh
The mineralisation at Cowza remains open in multiple directions, with the addition of a second rig allowing the company to simultaneously test multiple areas and rapidly assess the potential scale of the discovery. The RC program has been designed to systematically drill beneath a swathe of extensive air-core gold hits to probe the systemโs potential in fresh rock.
The companyโs flagship Yandal project, 85km north-east of Wiluna, already hosts a JORC resource of 8.17 million tonnes grading 1.52g/t gold for a solid 400,400 ounces, centred on its Horse Well gold camp and Dusk โtil Dawn deposit.
Notably, that project sits in the heart of one of WAโs most revered gold provinces, the Yandal greenstone belt, just 30km south of Northern Star Resourcesโ long-running Jundee gold operation. The region is also home to a conga line of other world-class deposits including the Darlot-Centenary mine and Bellevue Goldโs namesake high-grade project places Gatewayโs ground in the middle of one of the most sought-after exploration addresses in WA.
The Cowza discovery is the latest addition to a rapidly expanding pipeline of discoveries across Gatewayโs 100 kilometres of prospective gold trends. Other prospects, including Haflinger, Hummer, Mustang, Rubicon and Celia South, are creating what appears to be one of the more compelling exploration stories in the Yandal belt.
Several of these discoveries are advancing towards fresh-rock RC drilling, reflecting Gatewayโs shift from making new discoveries to defining their scale and potential. Adding to the intrigue, the company says it still has a backlog of aircore assay results pending from one kilometre of drilling north of the currently defined footprint at Cowza, pointing to a steady stream of news flow in the coming weeks.
Additionally, a key advantage for the company is its robust financial position. At the end of the March quarter, Gateway held a healthy $15.7 million in cash in addition to $5.6 million in liquid ASX securities, giving it a war chest of over $21 million to fund its ambitious exploration plans.
Gateway Mining chief executive officer Richard Pugh said:โThe commencement of a second RC rig marks an important milestone as Gateway moves into a new phase of exploration. Over the past several weeks we have demonstrated remarkable strike continuity at Cowza, with gold mineralisation now defined over approximately 3.5 kilometres and remaining open in all directions.โ
The company is employing a two-pronged exploration attack, bring in shallower aircore drilling to map out the mineralised footprint across its prospects before bringing in the heavier RC rigs to test for depth extensions designed to develop a better understanding of the system in the fresh unweathered rock.
With an existing 400,000-ounce resource in the bag, a pipeline of new discoveries, a 3.5km long gold corridor at Cowza that is still growing, and a bank balance that would make many junior explorers blush, Gateway looks perfectly positioned to exploit any future exploration success.
Now, with the rods spinning on two rigs, it is seeking exactly that and punters will be watching closely to see how big this Yandal gold system could be.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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