(Alliance News) - Greatland Gold PLC on Monday reported a considerably wider loss for the first half of its financial year, resulting from a doubling of exploration expenses.
Shares in Greatland were down 5.9% at 4.38 pence in London in morning trading.
The precious and base metals explorer and developer reported a GBP2.6 million pretax loss for the six months ended December 31, far wider than the previous year's loss of GBP1.5 million.
This resulted from exploration expenses, which were more than twice as high at GBP1.9 million compared to GBP937,732 the year before.
Greatland did not generate any revenue in the period as it is still in the exploration and development stage of its operations.
Greatland signed a farm-in deal with Newcrest Operations Ltd, a subsidiary of Newcret Mining Ltd, to explore and develop Greatland's Havieron project in Western Australia. The first stage of this completed in the first half, with Newcrest investing USD10 million of the USD65 million total farm-in agreement.
Newcrest it targeting a maiden resource at Havieron by the end of calendar year 2020 and commercial production in the two to three years after that.
At the end of 2019, Greatland's cash stood at GBP4 million, and it has received another GBP2 million of net funds since then from warrant conversions.
Greatland Chief Executive Gervaise Heddle said: "The first half of the financial year was an exciting period for Greatland, which saw our Havieron project establish itself as a significant gold-copper discovery. During the period, Newcrest completed the first stage of the farm-in, expanded the camp, accelerated drilling at this highly strategic asset with eight rigs now in operation, and provided plans for a further 20,000-30,000 metres of drilling over the next two quarters to support a potential maiden resource by the end of the calendar year.
"Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on moving our portfolio of assets up the value curve, especially in the Paterson, which we regard as the leading frontier in Australia for the discovery of tier-one, gold-copper deposits. Beyond the exciting progress at Havieron, we have identified over a dozen targets in the region, many of which display similar geophysical signatures to Havieron, and drilling of these targets represents a strategic priority for Greatland in 2020. Our team has spent the last few months planning a comprehensive campaign across these targets and we are well capitalised to make further strong progress throughout the year."
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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Greatland Gold (GGP)