Viking CEO moves up to top job as First Hit exploration continues

Viking Mines (ASX:VKA) is putting on serious exploration muscle with chief executive officer Julian Woodcock moving up into the top role as its managing director.

His appointment comes as the company progresses the Phase 1 drilling program at its flagship First Hit gold project in Western Australia with a visible quartz mineralised zone observed in one of the diamond holes.

Woodcock, who was the former exploration manager at Gold Road Resources (ASX:GOR), has over 19 years’ experience in the extractive and mineral exploration industry and has been directly involved with notable multi-million ounce gold discoveries.

In his time with Gold Road, he led a large exploration team that discovered and defined 300,000oz of new indicated resources along with converting 1.3Moz of inferred resources into higher confidence indicated resources at the Gruyere gold mine.

He has a proven history leading exploration teams that discover and develop new gold projects having previously served as the exploration manager for Evolution Mining’s (ASX:EVN) Mungari Operations and for Gold Fields Australia at the St Ives Gold Mine as well as various international positions for Gold Fields Ltd and Kinross Gold.

“Julian Woodcock is a most welcome addition to the Board. As managing director, he will lead Viking’s growth and development in relation to the First Hit Project and other projects,” executive chairman Ray Whitten said.

First Hit gold exploration

Meanwhile, Viking noted that 75 per cent of its Phase 1 drilling program has now been completed with a quartz mineralised zone observed at the target position within diamond hole VDD009.

Logging is currently underway at the hole and the completed core will be despatched for cutting and sampling.

The company expects to complete the Phase 1 program in early May and will proceed immediately with the Phase 2 program.

It has started reviewing holes for the Phase 2 program with additional data sourced in the form of geological maps of the historical underground workings at First Hit.

This new information is being used to refine the Phase 2 targeting along with the geological information attained from the drilling completed in the Phase 1 program.

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.