LONDON (ShareCast) - Iofina’s shares surged after reporting the “strongest first half in group history” on Wednesday as the explorer and producer of iodine achieved record revenues.

Revenue in the first six months came to $11.55m, up 51% on the prior year’s $7.6m, driven by the strong performance of Iofina Chemical processing and production from Iofina Resources.

Like-for-like losses narrowed to $124,410 from last year’s net loss of $969,935.

During the period the group won a multiple site contract with one of the largest oil and gas operators in the US, which helped to boost results.

The firm also appointed George Lantz and Gary Gatchell as Chief Executive Officer and Financial Director, respectively.

The company said the second half is on track to deliver further increased production rates at existing plants due to higher iodine concentrations, higher brine volumes, higher plant uptimes and decreasing production costs.

Iofina expects to complete construction of plants IO#3, IO#4, IO#5 and IO#6 by the year-end, which is estimated to bring an annual production rate between 700-1000 metric tonnes of crystallised iodine.

It would see Iofina become one of the lowest cost and largest iodine producers in North America, enabled by its patent protected WET IOsorb technoglogy.

"Iofina is now in an excellent position to monetise its proven technology with a total of six IOsorb plants in production by the end of 2013 and a further six planned for 2014m," said Chairman, Chris Fay.

"Process optimisation at IO#1 and IO#2 continues to produce higher iodine yields and this knowledge and experience will be applied to future plants."

Shares were up 18.24% to 175p at 10:26.

RD

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