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LONDON (Alliance News) - DekelOil Public Ltd posted a widened pretax loss for 2013 as it established a new crude palm oil extraction mill, as part of its strategy to become a West African crude palm oil producer.
The palm oil development company posted a pretax loss of EUR1.5 million, widened from EUR341,000 in the previous year, despite seeing revenue rise slightly to EUR465,000 from EUR419,000, as in the previous year it had seen a EUR2.5 million gain from changes in the fair value of its biological assets.
The company listed on AIM last March and raised GBP2.3 million to accelerate its strategy.
DekelOil constructed a 60 tonne per hour crude palm oil extraction mill in the Ivory Coast during the year. The company said that initial operations have begun in line with its expectations, but noted that the potential of the mill will only be realised when it has sufficient levels of fresh fruit bunches to move it to its full capacity.
The company said it had completed its near term objective of becoming a fully operational palm oil company in time for the 2014 peak harvesting period in the Ivory Coast.
The mill became full operational following the year end, and the company expects production from the mill to steadily increase as more fresh fruit bunches become available.
It will look to develop a further 5,000 hectares of plantations close to the mill to take its total to 7,000 hectares, said the company; it will also look to build a second mill to support its planted land over time.
"With construction of the Mill completed by year end, DekelOil is now a vertically integrated palm oil company with growing CPO production and revenues. The year ahead will see us use this as a platform from which we will look to build a leading West African palm oil company," said Executive Director Lincoln Moore in a statement.
Shares in DekelOil last traded flat at 1.30 pence Monday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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