Atlantic Coal Share News (ATC)

Despite a return to gross profit, coal miner Atlantic Coal has continued to make a pre-tax loss, according to its unaudited half year results. Although the company made a gross profit of $843,106 and turnover was up from $4.8m to $7.5m, the company made a $1.05m loss before tax, though that was a slight improvement from last year's first-half loss of $1.49m."We are extremely pleased to be able to report a return to gross profit for the six month period," company chairman Adam Wilson said: "We believe that this highlights the progress we have made in developing and advancing our primary asset, the Stockton Colliery," he added. The group's Stockton anthracite mine in Pennsylvania has a current reserve of 3.1m tons of unscreened anthracitic coal, equating to approximately 1.5m tons of washed anthracite after processing. Wilson said: "We continue to evaluate additional synergistic opportunities in Pennsylvania to consolidate our mining operations and, on the back of our strengthened balance sheet and management team, we believe we have the foundations in place from which to build on. It should be noted that we have a stringent due diligence process in place to ensure that potential sites will provide significant uplift." The group's cash and cash equivalents were significantly up at $15,707,669 (2010 H1: $135,221). The share price was up 13.85% to 0.37p at 14:23. NR