Sound Energy's losses widen ahead of seismic exploration programme

Moroccan focused upstream oil and gas company Sound Energy doubled down on its assertion that its assets in the North African country held the potential to be transformed into a material hydrocarbon province on Thursday.

Sound, which reported a £12.3m loss from continuing operations for the year ended 31 January, a year-on-year widening of 161.7%, ended the year with £21.2m of cash despite having invested £24m during the period into an exploration well in Italy and an expansion of its operations in Morocco.

Sound's second phase of 2D seismic exploration, currently underway and due to be completed in the summer, came just ahead of its planned additional wells for the Tendrara area later in 2017 after resource certification for the TE-5 Horst project was issued in January.

The group's losses per share widened to 4.28p from the 2.2p reported twelve months earlier.

"The company continues to believe that the TAGI and Paleozoic plays across Tendrara, Anoual and Matarka have the potential to become a material hydrocarbon province on a regional scale and therefore transform both Sound Energy and the Moroccan gas industry," said chairman Richard Liddell.

"We remain hugely excited about our future and look forward to success together," he added.

As of 1620 GMT, shares had dialled back 4.66% to 47.10p.