Gateway Mining has electrified the Western Australian gold exploration scene with a substantial new discovery at its Yandal gold project near the historic mining town of Wiluna. The company revealed a broad 52 metre aircore intercept at its Haflinger prospect, assaying an impressive 1.4 grams per tonne gold from a shallow depth of just 64 metres.
A Promising Strike in Prime Territory
This exciting Haflinger discovery emerged from wide-spaced, shallow aircore drilling along Gateway's regional-scale Celia Shear structure. This taps into the same fertile geological corridor that already hosts the company's existing high-grade gold resource of 400,400 ounces. The broad intercept included a particularly high-grade section of 12 metres grading 3.1 grams per tonne gold from the mafic contact structure, confirming a consistent high-grade gold zone stretching over at least 500 metres of strike length.
Open-Ended Potential and Upcoming Drilling
Critically, the mineralisation remains open to the south, where the geological contact appears to flex. These flexures create dilation zones that are ideal traps for gold-bearing fluids. Gateway reports that its magnetic data indicates this flexure extends another 400 metres south of the initial 52-metre hit. This area will be a prime target in upcoming drill programs as rigs mobilise to the site.
Haflinger sits within the broader Mustang-Pony trend. Previous exploration in this area, using rotary air blast drilling, was reportedly halted by transported cover in the top 50 metres. This meant the underlying sheared contact – a key host for gold – was effectively missed and left untested. Gateway's recent aircore campaign successfully pushed into the top of the fresh bedrock, with assays still pending from another hole at Haflinger that probed deeper below the discovery intercept.
Rigs Ready for an Aggressive 2026 Program
The company is preparing for an aggressive follow-up. Two rigs are gearing up to restart operations shortly. One rig will focus on infill drilling at Haflinger to map the contact structure more precisely, ahead of a planned reverse circulation drilling campaign. Simultaneously, the second rig will step out systematically to the south along the Mustang shear to test the extension of the mineralisation.
Gateway Mining's executive chairman, Andrew Bray, expressed considerable optimism. "The result of 52m @ 1.4g/t gold, including 12m @ 3.1g/t gold, is an outstanding new discovery from the aircore drilling," Bray stated. "Most importantly, this isn't an isolated result – it builds substantially on the two bottom-of-hole results we released earlier in the week, both of which returned high-grade gold within the key mafic-intermediate contact structure."
Geological Setting and Project Scale
Bray believes the geology is becoming increasingly favourable as drilling progresses southwards. The gold mineralisation is situated in a highly promising setting created by flexures along the mafic-intermediate contact, which are classic structural traps for gold.
The Yandal project itself is a behemoth, covering a massive 1780 square kilometres of prime Yandal greenstone belt terrain. It is strategically located 85 kilometres northeast of Wiluna and a mere 40 kilometres from Northern Star's prolific, multi-million-ounce Jundee gold operation. The project already boasts a significant resource base: 8.17 million tonnes grading 1.52 grams per tonne gold for 400,400 ounces across the Horse Well and Dusk 'til Dawn deposits.
Structural Complexity Hints at Larger System
Drilling along more than 8 kilometres of the known Mustang-Pony trend has consistently identified the key shear zone that connects the Horse Well and Dusk 'til Dawn deposits. The structural complexity of the Mustang shear, especially in the underexplored southern area where it converges with the Celia Shear, appears to have created prime structural traps. These are considered ripe for hosting large-scale gold systems.
Financially, Gateway is well-positioned to fund its ambitious plans. With approximately $13 million in cash and liquid assets, bolstered by a $22.5 million capital raise completed last year, the company's 2026 exploration blitz is off to a powerful start.
With broad discoveries already emerging at Haflinger and across approximately 90 kilometres of unexplored new gold trends on its tenements, Gateway Mining's stars seem to be aligning for a potentially transformative year in the goldfields of Western Australia.
