Viking advances drilling at flagship First Hit project

Viking Mines’ RC drilling at its First Hit project in WA is around 20% complete, with 15 holes drilled of the 65-hole program.

The drilling is focusing on the priority First Hit North target immediately around the high grade step-out diamond hole VDD016, which sits 165m north of the historic workings at First Hit and returned results of 1m at 13.52g/t gold earlier this year.

The program will continue throughout November with the first shipment of 400 samples already delivered to the lab.

Targeting new mineralised shoots

Viking Mines (ASX:VKA) managing director and CEO Julian Woodcock said the focus of the program is to identify new mineralised shoots north and south of the historic mine workings at First Hit.

“This drill program is designed to test for these shoots at the widest spacing to cover the maximum strike length of the structure,” Woodcock said.

“We have shipped the first batch of samples to the laboratory on schedule and the second batch of samples will be shipped later this week.

“We are committed to delivering samples routinely to the lab to ensure we obtain the results as soon as possible.”

Detailed geological logging of the drill chips is underway to identify any zones of interest ahead of receiving assay results.

“We will be comparing the drill chips to the diamond core drilled earlier this year to look for key characteristics to help inform the drill program as it progresses,” Woodcock said.

Highly prospective and underexplored district

Woodcock said the Eastern Goldfields is a “highly prospective and underexplored district and First Hit has significant exploration and growth upside”.

“With the program delivering on time and budget, I am looking forward to getting the fieldwork completed and the results back to advance this exciting next phase of exploration,” he said.

The company expects the remaining drilling to take around four weeks to complete, focusing on:

Complete drilling of the First Hit North target and move to the First Hit South target;
Continued routine shipment of samples to the laboratory as the program progresses;
Processing and loading of all data into the Viking Mines database for detailed review; and
Ongoing review of drill hole locations as data is collected to ensure effective targeting of the First Hit structure.

This article was developed in collaboration with Viking Mines, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.