Losses widen at Persian Gold

PERSIAN Gold – the John Teeling-chaired/AIM-listed gold and precious metals exploration company – has reported a marginal widening in full-year pre-tax losses to £316,000 (€384,000) for 2009.

Thu, 24 Jun, 2010 - 01:00

Geoff Percival

The Dublin-headquartered company had made a pre-tax loss of just over £310,000 in 2008. Last year’s figures also showed a 6p drop in the company’s loss per share to 42p and a £1,000 drop in operating losses to £315,118.

Earlier this week, the company – whose chief assets, unsurprisingly given its name, are based in Iran – announced its intention to take on an oil and gas exploration line through the reverse takeover of Hydrocarbon Exploration. The latter company – also chaired by Mr Teeling – owns the exploration assets that were left over from the buyout of Pan Andean by Canadian company, Petrominerales earlier this year.

Yesterday, however, Persian Gold went further by saying that as well as the Hydrocarbon deal – which calls for shareholder and regulatory approval – it is looking at a number of gold/precious metal exploration options outside of Iran, in order to boost shareholder value.

The company has already looked at gold projects in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, neither of which has yet produced a viable commercial lead.

But management is more hopeful about lithium exploration potential in Bolivia and Chile as well as gold and base metal projects in Peru. The proposed enlarged company will be re-named Clontarf Energy, although Persian Gold’s assets may be hived off in the future into a separate company. “To say the past 24 months have been frustrating is an understatement. Despite the best efforts of our team... no progress has been made in obtaining discovery certificates on our two joint-venture properties in Iran,” said Mr Teeling.

“There is a systematic, but slow, process of foreign investment approvals – which... we have obtained. Despite all of the above, we have made no progress. We’ll continue to work in Iran, but to secure a future for Persian Gold and our shareholders we’re developing interests elsewhere.”