May 20 (Reuters) - Oil and gas producer Gulfsands PetroleumPlc said on Wednesday it was planning to seek short-termfinancing from some of its shareholders to use as workingcapital.
The company said it faced "many challenges over the comingmonths," including seeking extensions to licences and securing"new funds sufficient to repay the Arawak loan facility and toprovide the necessary working capital to allow progress to bemade on some of our assets."
Gulfsands said in March that it would require about $11million to repay a loan to Dubai-based Arawak Energy and another$15 million for planned operational activities.
The company - which operates in Syria, Morocco, Tunisia andColombia - reported a narrower pretax loss of $16.1 million forthe year ended Dec. 31 compared with $26.8 million a yearearlier.
However, its cash available reduced to $7.9 million afteraccounting for $11.5 million held as security for anticipatedwork programmes.
Gulfsands added that longer-term funding would probablyinclude an equity raising or a combination of debt and equity,details of which it expects to announce before its annualgeneral meeting scheduled for June 30. (Reporting by Roshni Menon in Bengaluru; Editing by AnupamaDwivedi)