Papua Mining PLC (LON:PML) saw its pre-tax losses narrow in 2017, with the company announcing a proposed name change in its full-year results.
The AIM-listed miner, which focuses on exploration in Papua New Guinea and Australia, reported a pre-tax loss for the year of £380,388, narrowing from £6.09mln the previous year, with cash and cash equivalents standing at £1.25mln, up from £375,447 in 2016.
READ: Papua Mining surges as it identifies two intrusion-related gold/copper systems at Marengo
In October 2017, the company raised £1.4mln through a share placing for operational use, primarily to commence exploration activities at its Queensland properties.
In April, the group said field mapping and rock sampling at its Marengo gold project in the region had defined two intrusions with multiple veins.
The veins host strongly-anomalous gold, copper and silver mineralisation up to 59 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 4.58% copper and 297 g/t silver at the surface.
Papua now holds three Exploration Licences on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea (PNG), three Exploration Permit for Minerals (EPM's) in Queensland, and three applications for EPM's also in Queensland. The total area under licence, is 352 square kilometres in PNG and 624 square kilometres in Australia, including applications.
Chairman of Papua Mining, Michael Somerset-Leeke, said that the company would also be proposing a change of name to Rockfire Resources PLC at the forthcoming annual general meeting to reflect the company’s focus now being in Australia and PNG.
The group added that the directors saw improving investor sentiment in the sector, with exploration successes achieved to date would enable the company to raise sufficient exploration funding to continue its programmes in both jurisdictions.