Patagonia Gold's losses narrow

Argentinian precious metals explorer Patagonia Gold said interim losses were in line with expectations and reflected the high level of exploration activity that has taken place on its portfolio of Santa Cruz properties.The half-year pre-tax loss narrowed to £3.70m from £4.36m in the first half of last year after the company paid out £2.70m in direct exploration costs.This season's drilling campaign has commenced, the company said, focusing on extending the Cap-Oeste and COSE deposits and targeting the potential Cap-Oeste style shoots along the highly prospective Bonanza fault. A total of 32,000 metres of drilling is planned for resource and exploration drilling on the El Tranquilo property for the 2010/2011 field season.Cash reserves at the end of June stood at £10.6m after the company raised £13m net of expenses through a share placing in May. "We have commenced construction of our first gold mine on the Lomada de Leiva project. In the pipeline we have more significant gold and silver projects at Cap-Oeste, COSE and La Manchuria. We have so far defined combined mineral resources of approximately 1.3m ounces of gold and silver on our Santa Cruz properties. In addition we have significant exploration potential on many other prospects," said Sir John Craven, chairman of Patagonia Gold.