27th Apr 2018 11:38
LONDON (Alliance News) - Katoro Gold PLC on Friday reported a significantly widened loss for 2017 in a busy year, in which it completed a major acquisition and re-listed on AIM in London following a reverse takeover.
Katoro, which was known as Opera Investments until May last year, re-joined AIM the same month after a GBP3.7 million reverse takeover of Kibo Gold Ltd, which was a subsidiary of fellow London-listed firm Kibo Mining PLC.
The company's pretax loss for 2017 was GBP1.9 million, compared to GBP184,122 the year before. With no assets in production, Katoro posted no revenue for the year.
The wider loss was due to AIM initial public offering costs of GBP556,935 and listing costs of GBP206,670, as well as exploration expenditure written off of GBP911,649 compared to GBP167,608 the year prior.
During 2017, Katoro completed a pre-feasibility study drill programme at its flagship Imweru project in Tanzania, completing it in July ahead of schedule and under budget. It has already completed phases one and two of an environmental & social impact assessment for Katoro.
The current focus for Katoro is assessing the economic viability of Imweru, and it hopes to have the assessment completed by the end of the second quarter of 2018, or early in the third quarter. Feasibility work has been suspended while this assessment goes on.
At its other asset, Lubando in Tanzania, Katoro is to conduct an initial scoping study and then, if positive, go ahead with pre-feasibility and feasibility studies.
Katoro also said it is "committed to diversifying our asset portfolio", meaning it is looking for potential further acquisitions.
Shares were untraded on Friday, having been at 0.95 pence on Thursday, up 5.6%.
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