Viking’s $6.3m cash pile is earmarked for First Hill gold exploration

Viking is cashed up for exploration and drilling of its First Hill gold project in Western Australia with $6.27m in the bank as of 30 September 2021.

This is due in part to the receipt of US$3m ($4m) as part payment from the sale of the Akoase project.

Further payments related to this sale may add further to the company’s cash position after the Ghana High Court ruled in its favour in relation to unfulfilled conditions outlined in the sale of Akoase.

Viking Mines (ASX:VKA) is currently carrying out a 65-hole reverse circulation drilling program at First Hit with about 20% of the holes drilled to date and the first batch of 400 samples delivered to the laboratory.

This is aimed at identifying new mineralised shoots north and south of historical mine works at First Hit with drilling focusing on the First Hit North target immediately around the high-grade step-out diamond hole VDD016 that returned a 1m intersection grading 13.52 grams per tonne (g/t) gold earlier this month.

Assays from the Phase 1 and Phase 2 diamond drill program had intersected high-grade mineralisation at depth below and along strike from historical mine workings.

Notable results include 5m at 3.67g/t gold, 7.06m at 5.93g/t gold and 1m at 13.52g/t gold.

Visible gold was also sighted in 6 of the 19 diamond holes, most of which occurred in and around the First Hit workings while one hole intersected visible gold 165m north of the historic mine workings which could potentially represent an unrecognised mineralised shoot.

More targets

Previous aircore drilling had also identified four target areas for further follow-up exploration.

Twin Peaks is a broad +300m long gold-in-regolith averaging 15 parts per billion gold with two +40ppb peaks associated with a northeast striking structure and weak to moderate level pathfinder.

Five +20ppb gold-in-regolith targets make up the 1,000m by 400m Jana’s Reward area, which is supported by higher pathfinder element association and historical auger sampling.

Lady Bailey consists of three +15ppb gold-in-regolith targets spread across two aircore traverses and proximal to a significant interpreted northeast trending structure while Toby’s Find hosts a high level pathfinder association over a 800m by 150m area.

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.