LONDON (Alliance News) - Patagonia Gold PLC Monday said its pretax losses narrowed in 2013 as the company reduced its exploration costs and received its first revenues following first production at its Lomada site.
The gold and silver exploration and production mining company, with operations in the Patagonia region of Argentina, said its pretax loss narrowed to USD18.4 million from USD21.3 million the previous year as the company achieved its first yearly revenues of USD10.2 million.
The company started commercial production from its Lomada trial heap leach project on July 1 and noted that its total gold production until February 2014 is equal to 16,426 ounces for total revenue since starting production of USD22 million.
Patagonia Gold also reported a 42% fall in exploration costs to USD8.3 million from USD14.4 million as it focused on Lomada helped to offset a charge of USD9.9 million as its first cost of sales figures
The news comes after the company announced in January that it plans to expand gold production at Lomada to 3,000 ounces per month. However, in April the company revised down its forecast production at the Lomada mine due to technical problems. revising the figure down to 31,500 ounces of gold for 2014, from 33,000 ounces in a previous forecast.
Based on the expansion plans, the company also said in January that it expects a cash cost reduction to USD550 per ounce, an almost USD100 per ounce saving on its current production cash costs.
Patagonia Gold shares down 2.9% to 8.50 pence Monday.
By Tom McIvor; tommcivor@alliancenews.com; @TomMcIvor1
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