- Assay results from Gateway Mining’s (GML) wholly owned Gidgee Gold Project in Western Australia are stuck in an industry-wide assay laboratory capacity shortage
- Forty-two reverse circulation (RC) drillholes, for 6859 metres, and three diamond drillholes, for 971.2 metres, have been completed
- The company has sent off 37 batches of RC and diamond core samples which have been held up in the delays
- However, they are expected to be released after the Easter break
- Despite three days of rain that stopped work, Gateway says drilling has progressed well, encountering the targeted prospective ultramafic intrusive unit as expected in the predicted locations
- Shares are up 3.7 per cent to 2.8 cents
Assay results from Gateway Mining’s (GML) wholly owned Gidgee Gold Project in Western Australia are stuck in an industry-wide assay laboratory capacity shortage.
So far, 42 reverse circulation (RC) drillholes, for 6859 metres, and three diamond drillholes, for 971.2 metres, have been completed.
The company has sent off 37 batches of RC samples, however, there are “frustratingly long” delays in assay turn around due to the lack of assay lab space.
In addition to the samples, diamond core has been logged and marked-up on site and been transported to Perth for cutting and sampling prior to submission to the commercial laboratory in Perth.
Gateway expects the results to flow consistently after the Easter break.
Managing Director, Mark Cossom commented on the delays.
“While the slow turnaround of assay results — an industrywide phenomenon — has been frustrating, we are confident that this situation will begin to turn around quite quickly following the Easter break given the large number of samples currently in the laboratory.”
Exploration began at Gidgee last month, with the initial goal to follow up drilling at the Northwest Margin Lower Zone discovery.
Despite three days of rain that stopped work, Gateway says drilling has progressed well, encountering the targeted prospective ultramafic intrusive unit as expected in the predicted locations.
Shares are up 3.7 per cent to 2.8 cents at 10:38 am AEDT.