LONDON (Alliance News) - Antrim Energy Inc Friday said its pretax losses narrowed significantly in its full-year 2013 but that there remain significant doubts over the future of the company.
The oil and gas exploration company, which is yet to produce any revenues, said its pretax loss narrowed to USD9.4 million from USD134.8 million in 2012.
The company said it managed to reduce its general and administrative expenses by 17% to USD4.8 million from USD5.8 million and to halve its exploration and evaluation costs to USD3.4 million from USD7.6 million.
However, the majority of the company's gains came from a reduced impairment charge of USD7.0 million due to its West Causeway licence in the UK North Sea nearing the end of its exploration term, compared with a major USD122.7 million impairment charge in 2012 as the value of the company's Fyne Field in the UK North Sea fell significantly.
The company is currently in breach of certain covenants related to a USD30 million payment and oil swap deal in entered in January 2013 and it continues to experience higher than expected capital costs to complete its Causeway field development in the UK North Sea for which the company is subject to requirements to place additional funds into a reserve account with the lender.
Antrim said that failure to fund these capital costs or meet financial and operating covenants could result in the loss of the Causeway asset.
However, the company announced in February that it had entered into an agreement with First Oil Expro Ltd to sell its subsidiary Antrim Resources Ltd for USD53 million in order to hopefully pay off these liabilities.
Antrim Energy shares were trading down 1.3% to 3.95 pence Friday.
By Tom McIvor; tommcivor@alliancenews.com; @TomMcIvor1
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