Uranium Resuscitates Icon

Icon Industries (ICN-V) has neither a geologist nor a website, and its new uranium property, in the Otish basin of Quebec, has no name, but the market’s recent infatuation with uranium has forced the company into action.

The dormant Vancouver-based company had been trading consistently around 15 for the past year, but news of the property acquisition in mid-March caused Icon shares to soar to a closing high of 98 in less than two weeks. At presstime, the stock price was 86.

Chief financial officer Tom Wilson says the market’s reaction to the company’s first uranium acquisition took him by surprise.

“Uranium was the topic of the day — it looked good, so we took it,” Wilson says.

Now Icon’s got a website in the making and a vice-president exploration set to come on board by the end of the month, though there’s no word on a name for the property.

“We’ve basically been scrambling just to get our ducks in a row,” Wilson says. “We’ve really done no work at all in the company, we’ve just been looking for projects.”

Aside from the new property, Icon has a gold property in Manitoba called Beresford Lake. The company hasn’t done any work on it for a year and a half and plans to offload it in the near future.

Icon, which had its initial public offering in 1988, was known as Ghana Goldfields until 2000. It shares an office with sister company Tri-Gold Resources (TAL-V, TALDF-O), also run by Wilson and Icon president Barry Coughlin.

The Otish basin property consists of 85 claims covering 45 sq. km and is located 4 km west of Strateco Resources’ (RSC-V, SRSIF-O) Matoush property, where positive drill results were recently announced, highlighted by 16 metres grading 2% U3O8, including a 3.55-metre intersection of 4.02% U3O8.

Several other juniors have also picked up properties surrounding Matoush recently, including Consolidated Pacific Bay Minerals (CBP-V, CPBMF-O), Melkior Resources (MKR-V, MKRIF-O), Santoy Resources (SAN-V, SANRF-O) and Majescor Resources (maj-v, rsmjf-o).

Uranerz Exploration and Mining did some mapping, airborne radiometric and geochemical survey and prospecting work around the Otish basin in the 1970s, including on Icon’s uranium property.

In 1978, a large uranifierous boulder field in overburden was discovered on Icon’s property, which covered an area of 500 by 200 metres north of the Otish basin, around the north-central part of the property.

Uranerz sampled 49 boulders that returned an average grade of 0.11% U3O8, with several greater than 0.25% U3O8.

The boulders are made of brecciated biotite gneiss and pegmatite with little thorium content, similar to the style of known vein and fault-hosted deposits in the Otish region.

Uranerz mapped a north-northeast-trending fault that crosses northeastern portions of the property, which, based on topographic and geological lineaments, suggests that the fault could extend south-southwest through central parts of the property.

Once Icon’s new vice-president exploration joins the team, a summer exploration program will be developed that will include surface prospecting and mapping around the uraniferous boulder field and along the fault, followed by drilling in the fall or winter.

But before the company can do much, Wilson says Icon needs money. The company has about $50,000 in the bank, but Wilson says the recent rise in its share price will help Icon raise more cash. The company has about 10.4 million shares outstanding and a market capitalization of $9 million.

Icon is keeping an eye open for other properties, but Wilson says the hype surrounding uranium won’t blind the company.

“I don’t know that we’ll be totally into uranium,” Wilson says. “If other good properties come along we certainly won’t turn our nose up at them.”