Icon Energy wins court appeal after appealing loss of only its only asset, a gas tenement

Share trading for Gold Coast listed resource company Icon Energy was halted after a Judgement deciding its future was delivered in the Supreme Court. What will happen next

Listed Broadbeach resource explorer Icon Energy has been thrown an unexpected lifeline, winning a court appeal to keep its only remaining asset.

Share trading in Icon Energy was halted Tuesday morning after a Judgement effectively deciding its future was delivered in the Supreme Court.

Icon went to court after the Queensland Department of Resources rejected an application to renew a permit for its ATP855 tenement.

The tenement has been in expensive limbo since a joint venture with Chevron and Beach Energy fell over in 2015.

A hearing for Icon’s appeal was held on September 5, with Judge Sue Brown reserving Judgement to this week.

The Judgement was delivered on Tuesday and is yet to be publicly released in full.

A statement from the Department of Resources said it was still considering if it would take further action.

“The Department acknowledges the decision by the Supreme Court and will carefully consider the implications,” the statement said.

“The Department’s delegate had originally refused to accept Icon Energy’s application to renew its Authority to Prospect because it had failed to meet the requirements of the Petroleum and Gas (Production and Safety) Act 2004.”

Mr Ray James, Icon Energy managing director. Picture Mike Batterham

Shares in the company, which traded as high as 52c in 2009, have traded around 0.004c since May, however a flurry of trading in recent weeks has seen it increase by 275 per cent to open at .011c Tuesday morning.

Company founder Ray James, who was last week announced as its chairman, tipped in $520,000 in March to pay the rent as the company approached its court hearing.

Mr James declined to comment on the Judgement, and said more information would be revealed in coming days.

Icon previously told shareholders it had a “50 per cent chance of winning” the case.

The company has logged consecutive losses for more than a decade.

Icon logged a $5.54m net loss for the year as the tenement was “completely written off” as an asset that had been worth $3.45m.

The company also logged its rehabilitation of the tenement as a current $4.75m liability.

It was up from a $1.47m loss the previous year.

The company was also fined $17,231 by the government for failing to lodge the proper paperwork for the tenement before its permit expired.

Icon Energy Annual General Meeting at Southport Yacht Club in 2010. Pics Adam Head

Icon is obliged to decommission and rehabilitate six wells on the tenement.

The Department had expressed doubt over Icon’s financial capability to carry out its intentions to extract resources from the site.

At the time, Icon described the rejection as “a significant interruption” to its business.