Last checked at 
LONDON (Alliance News) - Offshore oil & gas exploration company Borders & Southern Petroleum PLC on Tuesday said its loss widened in the first half of the year on finance expense.
Borders & Southern, which focuses on exploration on its offshore assets near the Falkland Islands, recorded a pretax loss of USD961,000 for the six months to June. This compares with a USD871,000 loss the prior year.
Despite cutting its administrative expenses to USD783,000 from USD811,000 the company's loss widened as it incurred a finance expense of USD193,000, versus just USD60,000 the year before. At present, it is not revenue producing.
The company said its cash and cash equivalents had reduced to USD6.8 million from USD8.6 million. At present, it has no debt.
Three wholly-owned and operated production licences in the south Falkland Basin constitute Borders & Southern's business. The company said a farm-out process is ongoing.
"With an independently evaluated large, liquids-rich, gas condensate discovery, a completed screening development study, positive internal project economics and a clear appraisal strategy, we re-engaged with the industry to secure partners. We believe that we have a strong proposition to offer and have been pleased by the level of interest," said Chief Executive Howard Obee.
"The farm-out process is active. Our data room is open and will continue to be open for a while yet. At the start of the year our outlook was optimistic and this continues to be the case," Obee added.
Shares in Borders & Southern were up 2.7% at 3.58 pence on Tuesday.