Altona Energy falls into a loss despite cutting expenses by more than half

However, on a like-for-like basis Altona narrowed its losses by £411,000 as administrative expenses were cut from £765,000 to £341,000, but the previous year's £790,000 reversal of a provision against a former director's tax liability rendered the group unable to adequately display this.

Altona commissioned a strategic report to identify suitable areas on its tenements for coal extraction throughout the year which returned inconclusive findings, leading it to expand the scope of its study to surrounding tenements after the period's end, and refocus its business on conventional coal extraction.

The firm raised £1.1m from three separate placings throughout the year and as of 30 June Altona had seen its cash reserve drop from £362,000 to just £15,000.

Profits per share slipped to a loss of 0.04p compared to earnings of 0.05p posted a year earlier.

When discussing the group's efforts at moving towards production, Nick Lyth, chief executive of Altona, said, "Altona is a small company with a potentially very large coal asset and the Board is now embarked on a tight and focused strategy to identify and exploit this asset in 2018.

"Starting with further exploration in new areas of the tenements for which renewal applications have been made, the Group hopes to take advantage of the high coal price, by proving-up its plan in order to provide a possible exit within a reasonable time frame," he added.

As of 1110 GMT, shares had dropped 0.18% to 0.549p.