23rd Mar 2016 10:53
LONDON (Alliance News) - Greatland Gold PLC on Wednesday said it is continuing to evaluate its more advanced projects within its portfolio following the restructuring during the first half of the current financial year that saw it shun and offload a number of its early stage assets.
The mineral exploration and development company, which is yet to generate any revenue, reported a pretax loss of GBP226,915 in the six months to the end of 2015, slightly narrower than the GBP242,482 loss booked a year earlier, thanks to small reductions in both exploration and administrative expenditure.
Greatland spent much of the period restructuring its asset portfolio, launching a new strategy back in September to increase its focus on its advanced exploration assets and other near-term producing opportunities, and to offload its early-stage projects.
The company said it is still evaluating advanced opportunities and plans to provide an update "in due course", but added that the market has shown "several signs of improvement" in recent weeks following a "challenging" first half.
Greatland has defined the Warrentina project in Tasmania as an advanced opportunity and intersected gold mineralisation at the Derby North prospect in January. At the Ernest Giles project in Australia, the company has retained the two core areas covered by the Meadows and Carnegie licenses, but disposed of all the others as they were considered too deep and at too early a stage to pursue.
At the Bromus project, also in Australia, Greatland is relinquishing large parts of the project area but is retaining the areas with undrilled bedrock conductors which may hold accumulations of nickel sulphides. Greatland plans to begin drilling at this project in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Lastly, Greatland has disposed of low priority areas at the Firetower project and is now focused on the core gold mineralisation and the copper prospect in the west of the area.
Greatland said Firetower "remains one of the most advanced gold projects in Tasmania," after the company decided to retain a 100% stake in all of the licenses in the area after terminating a farm-in agreement with Unity Mining Ltd during the first half.
Greatland is also benefiting from AUD1.8 million of exploration expenditure that Unity Mining incurred as part of the farm-in agreement.
"Greatland believes that the strategy review will allow it to continue to maximise value for shareholders by opening the company up to wider growth opportunities. Shifting the focus towards advanced exploration assets and near-term producing opportunities is expected to ensure the company remains in a strong position to benefit from the improving trading environment," said Chief Executive Callum Baxter.
Greatland shares were trading down 7.8% to 0.0922 pence per share on Wednesday.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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