LONDON (Alliance News) - EMED Mining Public Ltd on Thursday said it is focusing its energies on the ramp up of the Rio Tinto copper project in Spain, as its pretax loss for the first half widened significantly on higher costs across the board.
EMED said its pretax loss for the six months to the end of June was EUR15.8 million, significantly wider than the EUR4.5 million loss it made a year earlier, due to sharply higher foreign exchange losses, finance costs and care and maintenance expenses. It generates no revenue.
The company is focused on the ramp up of operations at the Rio Tinto copper project in Spain, with plans to achieve 7.5 million tonnes per year by the end of the first half of 2016, and for this to rise to 9.5 million tonnes by the end of next year.
Last week, EMED offloaded its exploration assets in Cyprus and Slovakia in order to streamline its working capital and increase its focus on Rio Tinto. It said development work at Rio Tinto had been completed ahead of schedule and said it produced its first copper concentrate from the project at the end of July, though not in commercial volumes.
EMED shares were down 2.4% at 3.66 pence on Thursday.
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.