LONDON (Alliance News) - Alba Mineral Resources PLC on Friday said its loss narrowed considerably in its most recent financial year after an impairment the year before.
For its financial year ended November 30, the mineral exploration and development firm posted a pretax loss of GBP75,106. This was only a fraction of its GBP518,343 loss the year before.
The change was largely the result of a GBP569,218 impairment of deferred exploration expenditure in Alba's previous financial year. Another smaller contributor was that the company made an GBP825,533 gain on the revaluation of investment, compared to a GBP700,000 gain the year prior.
During its financial year, Alba began an extensive field work programme at its Thule Black Sands ilmenite and volcanogenic massive sulphide Inglefield projects in Greenland. A well test programme in its Horse Hill oil and gas investment in the UK's Weald Basin also began.
The results of the maiden mineral resource assessment of Thule Black Sands is due "this quarter" Alba said.
"In respect of the outlook for our oil and gas investments in the Weald Basin, while we are not in a position to determine the design and execution of technical work at Horse Hill and Brockham, those decisions being in the hands of their respective operators, we continually track the progress of activities there and keep the value of our investments under review, including whether we should continue to fund those investments or instead seek to realise value from either a partial or total exit," said Executive Chair George Frangeskides.
"The results of our work this year, when consolidated with the body of knowledge gained in prior years, will inform our decisions about where we should focus our efforts in moving one or more of our mining projects out of the exploration and into the development phase, to join Clogau-St David's which is already a development asset. As a diversified mineral exploration company, our modus operandi has always been to seek out exploration assets which have serious potential to become development and production assets. In that respect, I expect the coming year to be a defining one for Alba," Frangeskides added.
Shares in Alba Mineral Resources closed down 2.1% at 0.24 pence on Friday.
Alba Mineral Resources (ALBA)