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LONDON (Alliance News) - Tertiary Minerals PLC on Thursday reported a widening in its loss for the first half of its financial year as exploration costs jumped.
Tertiary Minerals shares dropped on Thursday, trading 14% lower at 0.30 pence each.
For the six months ended March 31, the company, which is developing a multi-commodity project portfolio, posted a pretax loss of GBP182,873 compared to GBP133,539 a year ago.
This was due to revenue reducing to GBP106,747 from GBP110,554 and exploration costs jumping to GBP49,602 from GBP11,954.
Meanwhile, administrative costs were reduced to GBP240,163 from GBP269,480.
"The fluorspar market remains strong, and we continue to enjoy the support of global trading commodities group Possehl in the continuing evaluation of our fluorspar projects," Chair Patrick Cheetham said.
"However, the board recognises that, whilst its key fluorspar deposits are large and potentially valuable, the current development hurdles have progressively eroded investor interest in the company.
"The board is actively addressing this and in the past few months we have been advancing a programme of low-cost mineral exploration and claim staking in the western US to expand and diversify the company's project portfolio and lower the company's exposure to commodity and permitting risk."
