Jubilee Platinum narrows annual losses as revenues rise

27th Sep 2013 15:43

Jubilee Platinum narrowed its annual losses after achieving a 28 per cent jump in revenue to 4.8m pounds.In the year to end of June, the group's gross profit surged 864% to £1.9m from the prior year's £0.2m, driven by electricity sales and sustainable reduction in operational overheads at its RST Special Metals subsidiary.The miner reported a loss per share for the year of 2.41p per share, down slightly from last year's loss of 2.43p. Loss before tax fell to £7.4m from £7.8m. Improving platinum prices, supported by a weak South African Rand, helped to boost results. Labour unrest, while not completely settled, has calmed following the early resolution of the recent gold mine strike. Last August Jubilee entered into a farm-in agreement in Madagascar with iron-ore focused Indian Pacific Resources, which will have the exclusive right to earn into commodities on the company's Ambodilafa concession.During the period the company focused on its Mine-to-Metals strategy in securing key assets including the acquisition of Platinum Australia (PLA) in May."The directors believe that the combination of Jubilee and PLA's assets is strongly complementary, which allows Jubilee to accelerate its objective of establishing a fully operational mine-to-metals platinum company," Chairman Colin Bird said. "The combination of Jubilee's acquired processing rights to platinum-bearing surface material with the fully operable PLA mining and processing assets potentially ensures that the combined entity is able to establish itself as one of the lowest cost producers of platinum concentrates."Shares were up 2.38% to 5.38p at 16:20 on Friday. RD