Losses widen at Hardy Oil and Gas

Pre-tax losses widened from $1.2m to $2.04m for Hardy Oil and Gas in the six months leading to 30 September, as litigation costs increased throughout the half and were expected to continue doing so through the 2018 financial year.

Hardy reported no revenue in the half - unchanged versus twelve months earlier - but saw administrative expenses rise from $1.5m to $2.1m over the year.

Despite the lack of revenue, the upstream oil and gas business announced interest and investment income of $235,090, a slight increase from the $221,464 collected the year before.

Throughout the half, the Government of India's appeal of the group's CY-OS/2 international arbitration award was ruled in favour of Hardy, with the award under consideration in Washington DC and having recently been initiated in the UK.

Hardy stated that its priority was to continue the "legal process to enforce the Award in the US and the UK."

Ian MacKenzie, chief executive officer of Hardy, said, "Our foremost objective is the enforcement of the CY-OS/2 Award, which will deliver new resources to the Group allowing us to expand our portfolio of upstream oil and gas assets and recommence appraisal of the CY-OS/2 natural gas discovery."

"The other near-term priority remains the development of a consensus on the way forward for the PY-3 oil field which should take us closer to re-commencing production," MacKenzie added.

PY-3 was shut-in in July 2011 and hardy had been "working diligently" to establish a consensus amongst its stakeholders regarding the "optimal development" of the field.

Losses per share at period end were 0.06p, double the previous year's figure.

As of 1540 GMT, shares had slipped 11.69% to 17.00p.