LONDON (Alliance News) - Stellar Diamonds PLC Tuesday said its pretax loss was slightly narrower in the first half of its current financial year as the miner continues to try to secure funding to bring its Tongo project into production.
The diamond development company focused on West Africa, which is not currently generating any revenue, said its pretax loss in the six months to the end of 2015 amounted to USD886,463 compared to the USD956,191 loss reported a year earlier.
Costs related to depreciation and finance both rose significantly in the year but were offset by a large fall in administrative costs alongside a USD275,568 gain from the remeasurement of derivatives which was not present the year before.
"During difficult resource market conditions, Stellar's focus has rightly remained on the key projects of Tongo and Baoule which offer the most direct routes to enabling Stellar to become a significant diamond producing company," said Non-Executive Chairman Peter Daresbury.
"Looking ahead our objective for 2016 is for Stellar to evolve from an explorer to a funded diamond mining company with Tongo moving into the development phase once the mining licence is granted and the necessary funding has been secured," he added.
Stellar needs to secure around USD25.0 million in capital to bring the surface and underground mining operation at Tongo in Sierra Leone on stream.
At the other mine, Baoule in Guinea, Stellar is continuing with its trial mining operation that is currently yielding around 1,000 carats per month in order to build up the resource at the project. The operation is "mostly cash neutral" and Stellar is hoping to establish a maiden resource for the project after July when the mining trial ends.
Stellar shares were down 0.3% to 8.85 pence per share on Tuesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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