LONDON (Alliance News) - Alecto Minerals PLC Tuesday said it is focusing on bringing in joint venture partners for its projects and vowed to minimise costs in the meantime, but also said it will continue to look for other opportunities to bring the company into near-term production.
The company reported a pretax loss of GBP962,148 for 2014, narrower than the GBP1.2 million loss in 2013 as the company's maiden revenue in the period was partially offset by increased costs and foreign exchange losses.
The company generated GBP243,961 in revenue from royalty payments in Ethiopia in 2014, which was partially offset by administrative expenses rising to GBP835,124 from GBP789,213 and a wider loss on foreign exchange of GBP194,346 from GBP116,482. Alecto also booked a GBP337,398 in impairments in 2013, something it did not repeat in 2014.
"The progress made during 2014 was pleasing having significantly increased our resource base across our portfolio at a low cost, both through exploration and acquisition initiatives. We have a vision to establish Alecto as a gold producer and continue to identify and evaluate appropriate additional projects in this vein whilst seeking joint venture partners to advance our current portfolio," said Chief Executive Mark Jones.
In February, fellow listed Centamin PLC terminated the earn-in joint venture agreement with Alecto for the Wayu Boda and Aysid Metekel licences in Ethiopia, leaving Alecto holding a 100% stake in the licenses.
"We have decided to minimise expenditure on additional drilling across our portfolio until this objective is achieved and whilst recent developments in relation to Centamin at our Ethiopian acreage were unfortunate, our focus remains on seeking to advance our projects through establishing joint venture opportunities or early monetisation as appropriate," said Jones.
Alecto also continues to seek a joint venture partner for its Wad Amour iron, oxide, copper and gold project in Mauritania following the renewal of its permits in August 2014.
The company said it is set to complete a JORC mineral resource estimate for the Kerboule gold project in Burkina Faso "in due course" and said this could potentially lead to the company's overall resource doubling when combined with its existing Kossanto East resource of 247,000 gold ounces at 1.14 grammes of gold per tonne.
At Kossanto West, the company said it has received interest from "a number of possible joint venture partners" following on from the company's discovery of multiple high grade gold targets at the project.
"Our strategy remains focussed on establishing joint venture opportunities for the advancement of our projects or early monetisation of opportunities, as we believe our current portfolio consists of a number of attractive assets, and, accordingly, we have decided to minimise drilling expenditure as we evaluate such opportunities," said the company.
"The board also continues to seek to identify and evaluate potential attractive opportunities to expand the company's asset base and thereby exploit the currently depressed sector valuations, including working towards securing a more advanced stage project that can potentially be funded through to near term production," Chairman Mark Wellesley-Wood added.
Fellow AIM-listed Savannah Resources PLC holds a 14.5% stake in Alecto Minerals.
Alecto shares were up 1.9% to 0.138 pence per share on Tuesday afternoon.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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