28th May 2014 12:17
LONDON (Alliance News) - UMC Energy Corp and Natasa Mining Ltd, who both have interests in the Papua New Guinea Petroleum Project, Wednesday said its pretax loss narrowed in 2013 at both companies.
UMC Energy, an oil and gas exploration investment company which is yet to produce any revenues, said its pretax loss narrowed to USD2.6 million from USD6.5 million the previous year.
The company said its loss narrowed as administrative expenses fell to USD2.0 million from USD2.7 million and it recovered from an impairment charge of USD3.1 million during the previous year, taking a cautious approach to exploration activities in Madagascar during the period due to an ongoing period of political upheaval and uncertainty.
During the year, UMC focused on the development of its 30% owned Papua New Guinea petroleum project and the progression of its Morondava uranium exploration project in Madagascar.
In August 2013, UMC published a Competent Person's Report for its four permits on the Papua New Guinea petroleum region, which showed likely net attributable contingent resources to UMC Energy on the PPL378 lecence of 7.4 million barrels of oil and 38 billion cubic feet of gas.
Natasa Mining, a coal mining and petroleum development company which holds a 41.32% equity interest in UMC Energy, said its pretax loss also narrowed to USD3.2 million from USD7.1 million the previous year.
It said that it gained USD2.5 million from the sale of equity and debt instruments and USD591,326 from the disposal of interest in an associate during the period, while its impairment losses on receivables fell significantly to USD1.9 million from USD6.2 million.
Natasa Mining focused its efforts during 2013 on the development of its Papua New Guinea Project and its Fox Creek Coal Project in Canada, where a Competent Person's Report was completed in September 2013, showing a measured, indicated and inferred thermal coal resource of 1.4 billion tonnes for the site.
It said that moving forward the company expects to devote attention to improvements at Fox Creek and the PNG Petroleum project while a number of other mineral operations investment opportunities are being investigated.
UMC Energy shares were up 4.8% to 2.75 pence, while Natasa Mining shares were down 1.5% to 34.00 pence on Tuesday.
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
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