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'Challenging year' for Perseus

'Challenging year' for Perseus

A combination of foreign exchange variances and increased mining costs has led African-focused gold miner Perseus Mining to a $30.9 million loss.

In what managing director Jeff Quartermaine described as a "disappointing result", the company reported operating cash flow of $19.1 million - down from $46.7 million in previous year.

The gold miner reported a $38.4 million profit in the 2012-13 financial year.

Despite the "challenging year" at its Edikan Gold Mine in Ghana where it reported increased costs, Mr Quartermaine said the result needed to be seen in context.

"Our reported profit last year was enhanced by foreign exchange gains while this year we have incurred material foreign exchange losses arising from pronounced movements in the US dollarand the Ghanaian Cedi against our reporting currency," Mr Quartermaine said.

"The Australian dollar and foreign exchange movements account for over 60 per cent of the turnaround in the result.

"Notwithstanding this change, we did have a challenging year at our which resulted in gold production falling short of budgets by approximately 10 per cent. Due in part to a fire in the processing plant in April 2014, a transformer failure in June 2014 and unreliable grid power supply during the course of the year."

At 11am Perseus shares were up 1.7 cents to 42.7 cents.