30th Sep 2014 08:51
LONDON (Alliance News) - Rame Energy PLC Tuesday said its widened loss and decreased revenues in the first-half are "in line with the company's expectations" following its listing on AIM in April.
The company reported a pretax loss of USD1.1 million for the six months ended June 30, widened from a USD498,587 loss in the first-half of 2013.
Rame's revenue decreased to USD397,944 in the first-half from USD1.5 million in the same period in 2013. Revenue is "in line with company's expectations following completion of the initial public offering and the positioning of Rame to deliver rapid short term strategic growth in on-grid, off-grid and engineering services divisions," it said.
"Whilst our financials are lower than the comparative period, this was expected and reflects both our focus on preparing our near term project pipeline for an accelerated delivery," said Chief executive Tim Adams.
"Thanks to the progress made during the period, Rame is ideally positioned to capitalise on a broad spectrum of exciting power generation opportunities in Chile and beyond," he added.
"We now have three distinct yet complementary business divisions; on-grid power generation, off-grid power generation and our engineering services. We expect to achieve growth across each division," said Chairman Andrew Cameron.
"Significant progress has been made towards this goal by leveraging and expanding our core skills sets, in particular through the successful acquisition of Beco Solar Limited in June. Chile suffers from a strained energy environment and having operated there for a considerable amount of time, we recognised the important role Beco could play in expanding our presence across both power generation divisions," added Cameron.
Rame's on-grid power generation division is currently attempting to accelerate funding for its four wind projects in Chile with Santander, and expects construction to begin in the first quarter of 2015.
Its off-grid power production division is in the process of signing a final contract with Mandalay Resources Ltd to provide power for a minimum of five years from Rame's 1.8 megawatt wind farm, which is planned to be constructed at Mandalay's mine.
In June, the company said it had signed a deal with a Chilean unit of Spanish bank Santander for up to USD69 million of equity financing for Rame's next four wind projects in Chile.
Its engineering service division is due to benefit from the acquisition of Beco, which specialises in designing, building and installing solar energy systems for domestic, commercial, marine and off-grid uses, as it currently has a number of tenders out for developments in the UK and has a strong order book for the rest of the financial year, it said.
"We are getting ever closer to the completion of our first large scale production project; have a strong funding partner in place for the next four projects in Santander; we continue to explore smaller scale, off-grid, higher margin, generation projects; have successfully integrated our first acquisition in Beco and our engineering business is re-establishing itself in its market place," said Cameron.
Rame Energy shares were up 2.8% to 17.50 pence per share Tuesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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