Tribune Uranium Seeking Value in Spin Offs, New Properties
By Anne Fletcher
October 15, 2007
As signs of a split corporate personality start to appear, Tribune Uranium Corp. (TSX.V: TCB) is looking to cure the condition by spinning off its non-core assets, including giving shareholders an unanticipated dividend.
The Vancouver-based exploration company announced October 9 it has two letters of intent (LOI) in hand for gold and copper-zinc properties in Manitoba’s Reed Lake mining district, near the recent VMS Ventures Inc. (TSX.V: VMS) copper discovery.
But Tribune was set up as a uranium company and plans to stay that way, says chief executive Graham Harris.
“We just happened to have a couple of opportunities,” Harris said in an interview. “They came at a good price and they are drill-ready.”
So the Manitoba properties will join Tribune’s Potonico gold property in El Salvador - brought on board initially because vice-president, exploration, Marco Montecinos, knows the region - in a new stand-alone company.
The legal work to create that company may take up to six months, Harris said, and, by that time, as Tribune continues its active search for drill ready properties, he expects to have another non-uranium acquisition to bolster value.
Tribune will have no stake in the new corporation, which will have completely separate management, Harris said. Tribune shareholders can expect shares in the new company in some ratio to their current holdings, for example 1:5, he said.
With plans for a first-quarter 2008 drill program in place once the 90-day period for due diligence is up, work on the newly-acquired Manitoba properties may be well underway before shareholders get a look at that company.
Under the LOIs with W.S. Ferreira Ltd., Tribune can earn a 100% interest in the Quartz Claims, northeast of Snow Lake, Man. and the Green Claims, south of Snow Lake, for $170,000 cash and an aggregate of 500,000 common shares over five years, for each property. The company will also pay a finder’s fee of $50,000 for each property to an arm’s length party, for a total of $100,000, subject to final TSX approval.
Assay results released by VMS Ventures of North Vancouver on Oct. 4 include 10.5 metres of 11.19% copper and 2.50 metres of 15.30% copper from drill hole RD 07-02 on its new Reed Lake project, near Snow Lake.
That project, as well as Tribune’s new properties, lie within the Flin Flon-Snow Lake Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) belt that to date has yielded more than 20 VMS deposits of copper-zinc along with gold and silver, producing ore worth more than $29 million.
The belt’s average 5 million tonne VMS deposit has a gross metal value of more than $1.5 billion.
The Quartz Claims was last drilled in the 1980s by Hudbay Minerals Inc., but Harris said those old results look more interesting today as discoveries over the ensuing years have helped in understanding the geology of the area.
The Quartz Claims cover a 4,800-foot-long electromagnetic conductor, interpreted as lying in a fold axis. The old drill results turned up significant gold mineralization, along with the alternation mineralization commonly associated with VMS. Results from the eastern end include 0.64 oz/t (18.14 g/t) Au over 4.2 feet and 0.43 oz/t (12.19 g/t) Au over 4.5 feet.
The untouched western end of the conductor, with two EM conductor bodies, will be the site of the 2008 drill program.
Old drill results from the Green Claims to the south, straddling the east shoreline of Blue Lake, turned up copper and zinc, including 0.75% Cu over 46.9 feet and sulphide exhalite grading 3.12% Cu and 2.25% Zn over 1.3 feet.
For both properties, “we’ve got some pretty good drill targets based on past exploration,” Harris said.
Work on the 149.5-square-kilometre Potonico property in El Salvador rests in limbo right now as local opposition to mining makes even the first step tricky. “We’re negotiating with the local bishop to gain access to the property,” Harris said. “I think we can come to an agreement with him.”
But drilling programs are underway on Tribune’s joint venture properties in northern Saskatchewan’s uranium-rich Athabasca region, currently home to the world’s largest uranium mine, owned by Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ, TSX:CCO) and minority partner Areva Resources Canada Inc. That mine is producing 18.7 million tonnes per year of 20.5% uranium, the highest grade in the world.
Tribune is currently working on its 60%-owned, 100,000-hectare North Shore Property, just north of Lake Athabasca and 10 km west of Cameco’s Maurice Bay uranium deposit, discovered in 1977 and containing an estimated 1.3 million pounds of uranium.
The company also recently announced winter drilling programs for its joint venture properties of Dufferin Lake-East, on the southern edge of the Athabasca Basin and adjacent to Cameco’s Virgin River uranium project with its recent Centennial zone discovery, and for its near-by Botham Lake property.
As well, the shopping spree continues, with Tribune close to making a “significant” uranium acquisition, Harris said.
But a $3.4 million private placement in May, 2007 is enough to keep Tribune going. “We’re fully funded right now,” he said. “I don’t anticipate raising any capital.”
This article is intended for information purposes only, and is not a recommendation to buy or sell the equities of any company mentioned herein. It is based on sources believed to be reliable, but no warranty as to accuracy is expressed or implied. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author except where statements are attributed to individuals other than the author, in which case the opinions are those of the individual to whom they are attributed.
