apprentice on smh

Beacon pulls some uranium from hat

Beacon's shares soared 70 per cent in trading yesterday after it announced its Barlee gold project in Western Australia had suddenly been deemed prospective for uranium as well.

Beacon made no mention of uranium prospectivity at Barlee in its prospectus before listing in October, consistently describing it as a gold project that could also be prospective for nickel.

But it cost very little for Beacon to discover the yellowcake potential. No soil samples or drill holes were needed. Managing director Lyle Thorne said the company simply re-examined old radiometric surveys conducted by the WA government.

Beacon said the strongest target, the Mondie 1 anomaly, was over 2000 metres by 500 metres in size. It noted the possibility Mondie was a shallow, salt lake uranium deposit like Rio Tinto's giant Kintyre find in WA.

"We're talking about a company that hasn't put a single drill hole down yet and hasn't tested these things," Fat Prophets analyst Gavin Wendt said. "The risks are high and the chances are low … at the moment investors aren't exactly thinking long term."

Mr Thorne said Beacon received the uranium data last week and released it to the market yesterday morning as soon as there was confirmation the tenement had been pegged.

Since listing in October, Beacon experienced several days in which no shares changed hands. But since it announced some promising soil samples from its Greenvale base metals project in Queensland last week, millions of shares have traded each day. With nearly 19 million shares changing hands yesterday, it was the fifth-most traded stock.

Punters on internet message forum Hot Copper were certainly excited about the stock. But many were especially impressed that one poster, with the handle "The Apprentice", had last week predicted Beacon would make a uranium announcement yesterday. He also accurately predicted the timing of the the Greenvale release. Shares had risen to 22c from 17c a day ahead of the announcement.

"The Apprentice" claimed "a source" had seen presentations on both announcements before they were released.

When asked about the message board postings yesterday, Mr Thorne said he had never heard of Hot Copper. He added the company had made no broker presentations in the past week.

Beacon shares closed 15.5c higher at 55c yesterday, having traded as high as 67c. It is up 150 per cent since last Tuesday.