24th Sep 2014 09:46
LONDON (Alliance News) - UMC Energy Corp and Natasa Mining Ltd, who both have interests in the Papua New Guinea petroleum project, reported a narrowed pretax loss for the first half of 2014.
Natasa reported a pretax loss of USD1.3 million for the six months ended June 30, reduced from the USD2.6 million loss experienced in the first half of 2013. This is mainly due making no impairment on financial assets, compared to a USD1.1 million impairment loss in the same period in 2013.
UMC had a pretax loss of USD1.26 million in the first-half of 2014, compared to a USD1.30 million loss in 2014.
UMC said: "The company remains dependent on loan funds being made available to it by Natasa Mining Ltd to meet its working capital and other requirements."
Both companies generate no revenue, with Natasa reporting no cash at June 30, running from bank overdrafts used for cash management purposes of USD4.7 million. UMC reported cash of USD130,543 in the same period.
Natasa also has a 100% interest in its Fox Creek coal leases, in Canada, reporting a measured, indicated and inferred thermal coal resource of 1.4 billion tonnes, of which 1.1 billion tonnes are measured and indicated.
Nataza and UMC have interests in the PNG Petroleum project in Guinea, containing two onshore and two offshore licences.
CNOOC, the Chinese state owned enterprise is the operator in Guinea, which has undertaken technical work during the half-year to better define the Paua structure, said Natasa. Its well planning for Paua-2X is expected to be drilled in late 2015.
It said the country over PPL 450 is extremely rugged and will require a major operational effort for seismic acquisition.
"The presence of half-grabens in the licence areas [PPL 374, PPL 375] is particularly important as they are deep enough and large enough for significant source rock potential, for either or both gas and oil to be possibly present in commercial quantities," said Natasa.
A half-graben is a geological structure bounded by a fault along one side, whereas a full graben has a depressed block of land bordered by parallel faults.
"If exploration and appraisal work indicates the probable existence of commercial reservoirs of oil or gas in any part of the PPLs at the end of the exploration phase, the parties must each finance their pro-rata share of all expenditure required in respect of the development plan, either themselves or by procuring sufficient finance from a third party," said UMC.
Natasa owns a 41.34% equity interest in UMC, which owns a 30% interest in its Guinea operations, with the operator holding the remaining 70%.
Natasa shares were down 6.3% to 30.00 pence per share Wednesday morning, with UMC shares were up 0.1% to 2.90 pence per share.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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