Ascent Resources revenue more than doubles

Ascent Resources more than doubled annual revenue and reduced its loss as the oil and gas company increased production.

The pre-tax loss for the year to the end of December narrowed to £1.37m from £1.978m as revenue rose to £1.9m from £814,000. The revenue figure was Ascent's highest since 2011.

The AIM-listed company produced 11.9m cubic metres of gas and 2,930m barrels of condensate during the year.

Ascent scrapped an attempt to sell itself during 2018 because potential buyers were deterred by the unpredictable permit system in Slovenia, Ascent's main market. In April 2019 Slovenia awarded a permit for a processing plant to enable Slovenian gas to be sold into the country's national grid.

Chairman Cameron Davies said: "After the progress of 2017 the year under review was a challenging one. Therefore it was crucially important and very encouraging that we received the IPPC permit in April 2019."

Ascent shares rose 3.1% to 0.34p at 1038 BST.