1st Jun 2016 09:29
LONDON (Alliance News) - Mariana Resources Ltd Wednesday said it plans to rapidly progress its flagship Hot Maden project during this year and next after successfully transforming the company in 2015 through its acquisition of Aegean Metals Group early in the year.
The miner is focused on advancing the Hot Maden project in Turkey, which has "set the bar quite high" for its other exploration projects in the country and in South America.
Mariana, which does not currently generate any noteworthy revenue, reported a pretax loss amounting to GBP7.8 million in 2015 compared to the GBP6.8 million loss booked in the previous year as its overall costs increased.
The two most notable cost increases in 2015 were employee and director benefits, which rose to GBP1.0 million from GBP583,029, and the foreign exchange loss that increased to GBP5.0 million from a GBP2.4 million loss in 2014.
Mariana had four board members during 2015, one more than the previous year after Non-Executive John Goodwin joined the company, pushing the total remuneration of the board up by almost 50% to GBP583,285 from GBP390,100 in 2014.
Chief Executive Glen Parsons saw his total package rise by 5.8% in the year whilst Non-Executive Chairman John Horsburgh saw his total package fall over 19% in the year. Goodwin took his first pay-packet in 2015 totalling GBP31,645.
Chief Operating Officer Eric Roth, who joined Mariana in early 2015 and is the former chief executive of Aegean Metals Group, saw his total package soar to GBP221,215 in 2015 from GBP48,342 in 2014.
"CEO Glen Parsons and his executive team of Eric Roth and Sharon Copper (chief financial officer) are to be congratulated on another very successful year. They have done a great job in managing the transition from grass roots explorer to explorer/developer and securing the necessary funding along the way," said Chairman Horsburgh.
Looking at the remaining workforce, Mariana had a workforce of 12 in 2015 compared to 11 staff members in 2014 but the total staff cost, comprised of wages, salaries, social security and share based payments, more than doubled to GBP397,379 from GBP192,929.
Partly offsetting those cost increases were lower impairments and write-offs of GBP1.6 million compared to GBP2.8 million in the previous year and a GBP927,733 gain from losing control of its subsidiary AMG Turkey Ltd to Lidya, which gained a 70% stake in the subsidiary after meeting its requirements under an earn-in agreement.
"The key achievement within Mariana and its portfolio over the past year has been, without a doubt, the rapid progression of the Hot Maden high grade gold-copper project, in north-eastern Turkey, from a raw discovery to an outstanding resource with extension potential. In the meantime, target generation, testing and technical reviews and positioning over priority projects in the rest of the portfolio continue," said Chairman Horsburgh.
Hot Maden was secured through the acquisition of Aegean Metals in January 2015 and Mariana's partner, Lidya, earned-in a 70% stake by funding work on the asset. This year, the partners plan to "advance the project rapidly" with the aim of completing metallurgical studies, a resource upgrade, a preliminary economic assessment and/or a pre-feasibility study for the project throughout 2016 and into 2017.
The group cash balance at the end of 2015 stood at GBP1.5 million compared to GBP821,123 at the end of 2014 whilst the company cash balance stood at GBP1.1 million at the end of 2015 compared to GBP651,757 at the end of 2014.
In a separate statement Wednesday, Mariana said it has issued 9.8 million shares after an equal amount of warrants were exercised at 2.636 pence each. The warrants were part of a convertible security agreement with Bergen Global Opportunity Fund LP signed back in September 2014 and then later terminated in February 2015.
Mariana shares were up 2.2% to 3.58 pence per share on Wednesday.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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