(Alliance News) - Beowulf Mining PLC on Monday said its loss narrowed in the third quarter of the year, following a sizeable exploration cost impairment the year before.
The miner, which is still in its development phase and has yet to generate revenue, reported that pretax loss shrank to GBP309,344 from GBP407,287 the previous year.
This improvement resulted largely from Beowulf's GBP150,421 impairment of exploration costs in 2018, which did not repeat in 2019 and related to the relinquishing of the Viistola graphite project in Finland.
In addition, share-based payment expense fell to GBP26,566 from GBP49,519, and administrative expenses rose to GBP283,310 from GBP211,029.
Issues with the firm's Kallak project in Sweden loom large for the company, which submitted its application for the iron ore project more than six years ago but has yet to receive either government approval or rejection from Stockholm.
Budge in October said he has heard from Sweden's minister of Enterprise & Innovation, Ibrahim Baylan, who said a decision was "forthcoming".
Chief Executive Kurt Budge said: "It seems evident that the coalition government in Sweden has been struggling to reach consensus on Kallak and that politics is standing in the way of a decision being taken. We have heard before, from the government, that Swedish law is sufficient for assessing the Kallak application, and, that any assessment of Kallak should be 'by the book'."
Budge added: "At the beginning of October, Mr Baylan wrote to me of a 'forthcoming government decision' in our case. The company has made its case and now it is time for the government to decide."
Shares in Beowulf were up 2.6% at 5.90 pence in London on Monday.
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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Beowulf (BEM)