Horizonte Minerals Share News (HZM)

(ShareCast News) - Shares in Horizonte Minerals were down a tenth after the metals firm posted a bigger first half loss than the year before.At 1128 BST shares in the Brazil focused nickel company were down by 10% to 1.80p.The company's pre-tax loss widened from £ 304,054 to £1.159m, as the company does not yet make any revenue. It had cash of £2.4m on balance day.Horizonte's loss was dragged down by an impairment of £253,006, and foreign exchange losses of £196,620.Basic loss per share was 0.235p, up from 0.076p.Horizonte, which said its Araguaia project would be the next major nickel mine in Brazil, said it had completed a number of milestones towards its goal."We are delighted to have made such progress despite very challenging market conditions and negative sentiment towards the mineral resource sector," chairman David Hall said in a statement.While Horizonte said it does not yet have a preliminary licence for the mine, and that was running six months behind schedule, this was due to changes of personnel in the government licencing authority and was not related to project factors.FinnCap analyst Martin Potts said in a note it had retained a price target of 44p, but it would be dependent on the nickel price returning to more sustainable levels.