Peninsular Gold

HOLD

01/03/2010 Robert Tyerman

Malaysian gold miner Peninsular Gold has turned a £672,000 interim loss into a £229,254 first-half profit in the six months to December.

Based in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, Peninsular Gold broke into the black after four-and-a-half years on AIM thanks to initial production from its Raub tailings project in the country’s central gold belt, extracting gold by modern methods from waste left over by mining in an earlier era. First-half turnover reached £5.2m, twice the figure for the whole year to last June, and cash operating costs, before finance and capital expenses, were $400 an ounce, against a present gold price of £1,111 an ounce.

Chairman and chief executive Dato Andrew Kam says the company has funding in place to probe the untapped underground resource at Raub, declaring Peninsular intends to identify further resources of ‘at least 1 to 2m oz of gold’ there. Having fallen from 62p in 2006 to 14p in January last year, the shares, highlighted by Growth Company Investor at 42p a year ago, have now reached 75p. Hold on for now.

Tags: AIM, Commodities, Turnaround

Sector: Mining

Companies: Peninsular Gold

Market cap: £41.4m

PE Forecast: n/a

Share price: 75p