Ferro-Alloy Resources Ltd on Thursday said a sharp fall in the vanadium price hurt its revenue in the first half of 2019.
Ferro-Alloy was admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange at the end of March after raising USD6.9 million in its initial public offering.
The vanadium producer reported a swing to loss of USD1.2 million in the six months to the end of June compared to USD331,000 profit a year earlier, as revenue dropped by 35% to USD1.1 million from USD1.7 million.
In addition, administrative costs increased by 57% during the period to USD947,000 from USD604,000, with the increase almost entirely due to one-off costs of USD300,000 for Ferro-Alloy’s IPO.
Production at the company’s existing vanadium concentrate processing operation grew by 55% to 71.5 tonnes year-on-year despite plant availability averaging only 75%. This was due to installation of new equipment and the renovation of the existing belt filter.
However, prices of vanadium pentoxide were volatile in the reporting period, starting the year at around USD16 a pound before falling to around USD7 a pound by the end of June.
Turning to Balasausqandiq vanadium deposit in southern Kazakhstan, the proposed development is planned in two phases to produce up to 22,400 tonnes per year of vanadium pentoxide. Currently Ferro-Alloy is working on a feasibility study to meet locally required standards.
Ferro-Alloy shares were untraded on Thursday in London, last closing at 25.62 pence each.
www.ferroalloynet.com
