(Alliance News) - Great Southern Copper PLC on Thursday said its half-year loss widened on higher costs, but maintains a confident outlook as copper and lithium demand accelerates.

The UK-based mineral exploration company targeting copper-gold and lithium deposits in Chile said pretax loss widened to GBP602,000 in the six months to September 30, from GBP481,000 a year before.

This was driven by administrative expenses growing by 25% to GBP602,000 from 481,000 a year ago.

Looking ahead, the company said that it is well funded to advance its exploration campaigns and is confident it will "unlock what it believes to be substantial potential within the portfolio" in 2024.

Chief Executive Officer Sam Garrett said: "It has been very positive first half of the year as we continue to make strong progress across our prospects and in particular at Especularita where our exploration campaigns have delivered encouraging results and helped to delineate promising prospects for further exploration.

"As the green energy transition continues to progress, we expect to continue to see accelerating demand for critical minerals such as copper and lithium and we believe this provides the ideal economic context as we continue to advance our projects."

Shares in Great Southern Copper were untraded at 2.40 pence each in London on Thursday morning.

By Sabrina Penty, Alliance News reporter

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