VKA - due diligence completed on US tungsten project

Our US tungsten Investment Viking Mines (ASX: VKA) just completed due diligence for its recently acquired Linka tungsten project in Nevada, USA.

VKA’s Linka has historic production of a combined ~123,000t at 0.54% tungsten grades.

Tungsten has military uses in munitions (bullets), vehicles and body armour, missiles and radiation shields… at the moment the USA is 100% beholden to imports of this critical military mineral..

At the Linka project (where VKA has expanded its ground position recently) between 1955 and 1956, 360 tonne per day was milled from an open pit mine - here is a photo of that old pit:

(source)

Despite its history of tungsten production - the Linka project hasn’t really been explored with modern exploration methods.

Since picking up the project VKA has:

• Expanded its ground position to cover more of the mineralisation that appears to continue to the north and south of the Linka Mine area.
• Started modern geophysical surveys to get a better understanding of how the mineralised structures extend and to help define drill targets.
• Acquired a historic data set over the project and started digitising the data.
• Located tungsten intercepts outside of the old workings using the digitised dataset - including a hit of 7.9m @ 0.9% tungsten from just 7.6m.
• Sent off metallurgical samples that will aid in a potential rapid startup operation

VKA still has newsflow to come from the results for the remaining drill data digitisation, geophysics surveys results plus the met work, these will be used to plan an initial drill program expected in Q2.

Here is a brief overview of what VKA has defined so far at its Linka project:

(source)

After today’s announcement, it looks like future drilling will be focused on “grade control” next to the old workings - this type of drilling is usually done so a company knows how best to mine a certain part of a project.

VKA also mentioned it was investigating "toll treatment" (using third-party facilities) to process existing surface stockpiles (0.8% tungsten), which would produce concentrate samples for potential offtake partners.

So VKA seems to be focused on a fast to market strategy here…

As for the exploration upside, today’s announcement made mention of the ~1.6km of strike to the south that VKA will be targeting with future exploration programs:

(source)

Why we like the fast-to-market approach

VKA explicitly made mention in the announcement that the US is targeting to be clear of Chinese tungsten by December 2026 for military supply chains through the be REEShore Act.

This is specifically creating an urgent demand for Nevada-based sources, which is where VKA’s tungsten project is located.

The Tungsten price is also continuing to react, when VKA acquired the project in mid December, it listed the price of ~US$800/t for a tungsten product:

(source)

Now just 2 months later, yesterday VKA stated the price has risen to basically double:

(source)

The US currently has no domestic tungsten production…

And now with the US$12BN critical minerals stockpile announced we think demand for domestic supply sources will increase in 2026… especially leading up to that December 2026 deadline we mentioned earlier.

We did a deep dive article on why we like VKA’s fast to market strategy yesterday, check that out here:Tungsten running. VKA drilling next quarter after digitisation of historical data

VKA’s project is located near key US defence stockpile locations such as the Hawthorne Army Depot, the largest storage facility in the world.

(hopefully that puts VKA’s project on the radar of anyone looking for domestic tungsten supply)

(source - acquisition announcement in December)

What do we want to see VKA do next?

✅Complete the acquisition of the new tungsten assets.

Today, VKA announced that due diligence on the project has been completed

🔄 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)