30th Jun 2016 12:35
LONDON (Alliance News) - ECR Minerals PLC shares fell on Thursday after it said a reduction in costs allowed its loss to narrow in 2015 as it progresses the deal to wholly acquire two gold projects in Australia.
ECR shares were down 12% to 0.015 pence per share on Thursday.
The miner, which is exploring and developing three gold projects spread around the world, said its pretax loss in the first half of its current financial year amounted to GBP433,119, less than half the GBP1.0 million loss booked a year earlier.
With no revenue coming in, ECR had to reduce costs to improve its performance. The main driver was administrative costs, which fell to GBP296,286 from GBP629,183 a year earlier, partly offset by a tiny foreign exchange loss and a GBP780,000 impairment that was not booked in 2014.
Although it has projects in Argentina and the Philippines, the primary focus in 2015 was on the Avoca and Bailieston gold projects in Victoria, Australia, which the company's subsidiary is in the process of acquiring in full.
The subsidiary is prioritising the Avoca project, where the potential to generate relatively short-term cash flow from the reprocessing of historical waste dumps to extract remnant gold is being evaluated.
An economic study is being prepared at Avoca, setting out the capital requirements and projected returns from the operation, and the timescale which would be required to reach production. Completion of the study is targeted for July this year.
At the Bailieston project, a programme of rotary air blast percussion drilling has been postponed until "later in the year" from the original plan to start drilling this month.
ECR has also applied for new exploration licences in Australia near to the existing projects.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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