VKA: Ancient scrolls delivering more hits

Disclosure: S3 Consortium Pty Ltd (the Company) and Associated Entities own 95,000,000 VKA Shares at the time of publishing this article. The Company has been engaged by VKA to share our commentary on the progress of our Investment in VKA over time. This information is general in nature about a speculative investment and does not constitute personal advice. It does not consider your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Any forward-looking statements are uncertain and not a guaranteed outcome.

The first thing you think about when you hear China, Russia, Iran and North Korea is probably the USA’s key adversaries, right?

Well, these four countries combined also control around 90% of the global tungsten market.

Tungsten is a critical military mineral used mainly in armor-piercing munitions, and is currently trading at all time highs.

(up 400% in the last 18 months) (source)

The USA has recently realised that relying on your enemies for the materials you need to make bullets isn't a sound strategy...

This was after China (who controls 80% of the tungsten supply) decided that restricting export of bullet making materials to the USA could be a fun idea...

So the USA is now rushing to find domestic tungsten supply.

By 1st January 2027 (311 days from today) the US has said it wants to heavily restrict tungsten purchases from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. (source)

Assistant Secretary of US Defence for Industrial Base Policy - Dr Vic Ramdass also said “developing a domestic source for tungsten is one of our top critical and strategic mineral priorities” (source)

70 days ago, our Investment Viking Mines (ASX:VKA) acquired 100% of an asset that produced tungsten in the mid 1950’s in Nevada, USA.

Since then the tungsten price is up 125%. (source)

VKA also recently uncovered some historical drilling documents (literally drawn by hand on paper) and during the digitisation process have today released ANOTHER set of previously unknown drill hits:

(source)

The map below shows where VKA’s projects sit in Nevada - relative to the project that received the Department of War funding AND the critical minerals stockpile in Nevada:

VKA plans to do its own new drilling in the coming months (next quarter).

A few weeks ago, VKA acquired ~2,816m of historical drilling data - 68 drill holes (8 diamond and 60 percussion) across three of its key targets and immediately started digitising the data.

This is what those records looked like (yep, they were hand drawn on parchment):

(source)

For the past few weeks, VKA has been digitising that old data and last week announced tungsten intercepts in and around the old workings responsible for that production.

The announcement last week had a big “open” area that VKA had no data on... until today...

(in exploration drilling “open” means it looks like the mineralisation extends in a certain direction)

Now with 100% of the old data digitised, VKA’s been able to map some very high grade historic drill results trending in that direction:

(source)(source)

Some of those hits - relative to other tungsten projects are seriously high grade up to 1.3% tungsten from 12m+ intervals (all from intercepts down to just ~30m depths):

Again, here are today’s results:

(source)

Those are some seriously strong grades - typically, global tungsten mines operate with grades as low as 0.1-0.2%.

For some context, here are some hits from EQ Resources’ Mount Carbine asset in Australia (one of their main operating assets):

(source)

VKA’s results announced today are all across thicker intervals - with similar/higher grades.

EQ currently trades with a market cap of ~$1.1BN and its share price has been running along with the surging tungsten price:

(source)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

EQ’s asset sits in far north Queensland in Australia...

The kicker for VKA is that its project sits inside US borders - which we think adds a strategic angle to its project.

(the USA is trying to fix relying on other countries for critical metal supply)

And VKA will be drilling its project next quarter...

A big focus for that drill program will be to “target high-grade, shallow blocks for early mining”... “to secure a domestic supply for U.S. defence and industrial needs in the shortest possible timeframe”.

The exact strategy that seems to be working for miners in the US these days

• Showing you can produce critical minerals from domestic US sources,
• Getting some sort of government funding/backing, AND
• Then backfilling demand with the funding from the US government.

It's an approach we have seen others take (successfully) in the antimony space - $1.5BN US Antimony Corp, for example, received a US Department Of Defence stockpiling deal - then started looking for antimony assets all over the world.

It's also the strategy that our Investment Locksley Resources (ASX: LKY) is following for its antimony project in California (and having a lot of success).

In 2025, LKY started working on downstream antimony processing tech, produced a 100% US sourced/processed antimony ingot and then received US$191M in potential funding support to redevelop its project from the US Export-Import Bank:

(source)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

We are Invested in VKA to see it become “LKY 2.0” - executing a similar fast to market strategy - this time in the tungsten space.

VKA is capped at ~$32M, and is backed by the same team that was involved with LKY during its 2025 run.

It's a fairly simple strategy of ‘following the team that made you money before’.

Now with underground mine shafts mapped, old drilling intercepts hinting at extensions beyond those old workings and a documented history of production - the two assets LKY and VKA own are starting to share a lot of similarities...

We think that with modern exploration, VKA can put together a mine redevelopment plan for its most advanced project (Linka) - similar to what LKY has done.

Next, we want to see the VKA team execute LKY’s strategy with things like:

• Hard and fast (hehehe) mapping and sampling of its projects (including things like LiDAR surveys to get a full sense of what’s sitting below the ground).
• Define a redevelopment strategy (similar to what they did with LKY - a video like this for one of VKA’s projects would be great)
• Define a downstream tungsten strategy for VKA (similar to what LKY is doing with Rice/Columbia university and US based Hazen Research).

While the mine redevelopment strategy builds around the historic workings on the project - we also get a free kick at a “moonshot” exploration target on a big geophysical anomaly...

And IF drilling into that geophysical anomaly discovers a new monster deposit, that will be the icing on the cake for us:

(Source)

Why Tungsten and why now?

We think tungsten could be the next critical mineral to capture the market and US government attention.

Tungsten is an ultra hard metal with a high melting point and so has military uses in munitions (bullets), vehicles and body armour, missiles and radiation shielding.

The USA is 100% beholden to imports of this critical military mineral.

China dominates global tungsten supply (~80% of the market) and in early 2025 put export restrictions on supply out of China. (Source)

The US government has also slowly started making moves in the tungsten market - by 1st January 2027 the US wants to heavily restrict tungsten purchases from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea:

(source)

So much so that the restriction explicitly said the prohibition extends all the way back to:

“mining or production of a tungsten ore or feedstock, including recycled material, through production of tungsten metal powders, tungsten heavy alloy, or any finished or semi‐finished component containing tungsten heavy alloy” in a covered country (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea)” (Source)

Those four countries combined control around 90% of the tungsten market, with China accounting for near 84% of this alone. (source)

Basically, the US has 2026 to get its house in order and establish alternative supply chains for a mineral that it is 100% import dependent on...

(Which is why we think 2026 could end up being the year for Tungsten inside US borders)

That deadline starts on January 1st 2027.

So where will the US find its tungsten - hopefully from projects like VKA’s.

Why being inside the US matters?

In our last VKA note we mentioned the speech Special Assistant to the US president, National Security Council - David Copley gave at Saudi Arabia’s Future Minerals Forum where he said:

“Over the next few years the US government will deploy hundreds of billions in capital into the mining sector”

(watch it here)

Then a few weeks after US Vice President JD Vance gave a speech where he started talking about establishing critical mineral price floors amongst allied countries. (source) (source)

In fact, Vance even mentioned that despite all of the backing the US government has given the industry to date, private capital just hadn't reacted yet (implying there is a lot more work to be done to get projects off the ground).

We covered JD Vance’s speech in detail in this section of our recent weekend note here: US critical minerals had, possibly its biggest week yet

We think the whole US critical minerals macro thematic is only just getting started.

IF 2026 ends up being the year of tungsten then VKA could get swept up in the tidal wave of interest in the USA building up its own domestic tungsten supply chain.

A few big funding deals from the US government to tungsten companies and we think it will be “game on” for all US tungsten assets.

In mid-2025, the Department of War gave Golden Metal Resources US$6.2M to advance its tungsten project, right near VKA’s tungsten assets.

When that deal was announced the Assistant Secretary of Defence for Industrial Base Policy - Dr Vic Ramdass also said “developing a domestic source for tungsten is one of our top critical and strategic mineral priorities”:

(source)

We think the US government will need to pour a lot more than US$6.2M into the domestic tungsten industry if it's serious about rebuilding domestic supply chains.

Especially with that 1 January 2027 deadline looming...

We have already seen the Department of War’s critical minerals stockpile 12x from US$1BN in 2025 to now US$12BN (tungsten is a key priority of that stockpile). (source) (source)

We think the same step-change will happen in the scale of funding coming out of the US government into the critical minerals space.

... AND we hope VKA is one of the companies to be benefiting from those capital flows.

This is where we think rolling out the “fast to market” playbook on a US critical minerals asset, during a window of heightened urgency and investor, government and market interest becomes important.

Here is that maps again that shows where VKA’s projects sit in Nevada - relative to the project that received the Department of War funding AND the critical minerals stockpile in Nevada:

The 9 key reasons why we Invested in VKA

Below are the 9 reasons why we Invested in VKA from our initiation note from December 16th, 2025.

You can read that December 2025 note in full here.

1. Low market cap with room to re-rate higher

VKA will have a market cap of ~$11M and an enterprise value of ~$5.5M (at 0.5c post capital raise). We think the company’s valuation is currently at a level where it can re-rate to multiples of where it is now - if the US critical minerals playbook is executed well and the market continues to reward the sector.

UPDATE: VKA is currently trading at a market cap of circa $32M.

2. VKA has the same team and backers as Locksley Resources (ASX: LKY).

Board, management and major shareholders of VKA are very similar to VKA. LKY at its peak was up 626% from our Initial Entry Price. We are backing the same group to deliver more wins with VKA.

Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

3. Tungsten prices trading at all time highs

Tungsten prices are currently at all time highs (source), driven by Chinese export restrictions (see reason #4 below).

We think it's a good time to have exposure to tungsten in our Portfolio.

4. China dominates the global supply and has placed export restrictions on tungsten

China controls ~80% of the world’s tungsten mining and processing supply chain. In February 2025, the Chinese government put export controls on tungsten imports out of China. (source)

The US has no domestic production and is 100% reliant on imports for tungsten, which we think makes projects like VKA’s (inside US borders valuable).

5. VKA’s tungsten assets are in Nevada, USA

We like Nevada as a mining jurisdiction within the USA because it's home to some of the biggest, lowest cost mines in the country, and we have had some good wins in Nevada before (SS1, BKB).

(past performance is not an indicator of future performance)

6. Very few companies with tungsten projects on the ASX - even less with projects inside the USA

There are very few tungsten-focused companies on the ASX - especially ones with projects inside the US.

IF US tungsten companies go on a run it could mean a lot of capital looks to flow into a handful of companies of which VKA will be one.

7. VKA’s projects have produced tungsten in the past

Across the six assets VKA is acquiring, there has been ~123,000 tonnes mined from open pits, and underground adits.

One project also has a 360 tonne per day mill in place. Channel sampling from VKA’s project returned grades of ~2.11%. The biggest tungsten deposit inside US borders (also in Nevada) has average grades of 0.25% tungsten.

8. Capital is flowing into US critical metals macro thematic

We think VKA’s US tungsten assets could attract increased capital flows both on the ASX and from North American investors/governments/institutions.

Funding from US government agencies could be from places like the Department of War, Department of Energy, Department of Interior.

Alternatively, VKA’s project could attract capital from tungsten end users or big financiers like JP Morgan who is just starting to become active in the critical minerals space.

9. VKA can follow the “US critical minerals playbook”

There is a playbook for ASX stocks to attract more attention and capital to projects that are based in the US. VKA isn’t yet listed in the US, and we think that if its project gets any traction it could go for a US listing that opens up the project to North American investors.

Our VKA Big Bet:

“VKA re-rates to $100M+ market cap with a fast to market tungsten production and downstream strategy, as well as continued interest and capital flows into the USA critical metals thematic”

NOTE: our “Big Bet” is what we HOPE the ultimate success scenario looks like for this particular Investment over the long term (3+ years). There is no guarantee that our Big Bet will ever come true. There is a lot of work to be done, many risks involved, including development risk, country risk and commodity price risk - just some of which we list in our VKA Investment Memo.

Success will require a significant amount of luck. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

What’s next for VKA?

🔄 Target generation work (mapping/sampling)

We want to see VKA digitise the historical drilling and previous sampling data on the project, which VKA has confirmed today that it is now 54% of the way through.

After that we want to see the full data set get integrated into a modern 3D model.

We also want to see the project mapped with LiDAR to reveal the full extent of the underground workings on the project.

Milestones:

🔄 Mapping and sampling (soils and rock chips)

🔄 Geophysics/LiDAR (geophysics commenced a few weeks ago) (source)

🔲 Drill targets confirmed

🔲 Drilling (planned for April) (source)

🔄Early metwork testing

VKA recently sent off a bulk sample to test its viability for processing.

In particular there is a focus on exploring the viability for this to be used in an early production opportunity scenario, with results from this expected in February. (source)

What are the risks?

Like any small cap exploration company, investing in VKA involves a range of risks, some known, some unknown (this is the nature of investing in early-stage companies).

Here we aim to identify some of the key risks.

VKA’s new tungsten projects rely heavily on historical data, production records, and sampling from the 1940s and 1950s. There is a risk that VKA is unable to verify this historical data with modern exploration work.

A key part of our Investment Thesis relies on VKA successfully executing the "US market listing playbook" (including US listings, appointing lobbyists, and securing downstream partnerships).

There is a risk that VKA fails to execute these corporate strategies effectively or that they do not generate the anticipated interest from US investors.

Although the US government is actively funding critical minerals projects, there is no guarantee VKA will receive any government grants or strategic funding.

VKA will need to secure permits for its planned drilling programs and any future development in Nevada. VKA may face regulatory delays that could slow down exploration.

Finally, the market for tungsten is relatively opaque and dominated by China. Any changes in Chinese export policies or global demand could impact the underlying commodity price and investor sentiment toward the sector.

Investors should consider these risks carefully and seek professional advice tailored to their personal circumstances before investing.

Our VKA Investment Memo

You can read our VKA Investment Memo in the link below.

We use this memo to track the progress of all our Investments over time.

Our VKA Investment Memo covers:

• What does VKA do?
• The macro theme for VKA
• Our VKA Big Bet
• What we want to see VKA achieve
• Why we are Invested in VKA
• The key risks to our Investment Thesis
• Our Investment Plan