Revenues slide but losses narrow at Strategic Minerals

Minerals production and development company Strategic Minerals announced its final numbers on Monday, with a cash position of $1.05m on 31 December 2015.

The AIM-traded firm said that during the year, it secured an early agreement to extend the Cobre mining rights to March 2017, and maintained a tight control on overheads with those falling 26% despite the increased activity.

It also reviewed its strategy, with the board undertaking an operating strategy seeking to maintain overheads, adopting a three-pronged investment strategy addressing coal and bulk minerals, advanced materials, and metals.

The numbers didn’t lie, however, with revenue of $1.25m a serious slide from $6.09m a year earlier.

Gross profit was much improved, at $1.01m against a loss of $0.63m a year earlier.

All other items considered, Strategic reported a loss before tax of $0.88m in 2015, compared to a loss of $6.04m in 2014.

Its basic and diluted losses per share were $0.001, narrowing from $0.009 12 months prior.

“2015 was a challenging year where tough decisions had to be made in light of turbulent market conditions, but also a transformational one in which the company took a stake in an exciting new project and adopted a new investment strategy,” said managing director John Peters.

He said the board is confident that Strategic Minerals is well-positioned for 2016, with a solid cash flow foundation and a proposed self-funded drilling programme, and that the outlook for the company is encouraging.

“Strategic Minerals now has lower overheads, an existing cash flow stream from Cobre and the potential upside from a drilling programme at the company's Laverton project in Western Australia.

“The company continues to maintain tight controls on its overheads and is actively examining a number of potential opportunities, and we look forward to securing additional projects during the year,” Peters explained.