Armadale Capital PLC (LON:ACP) continues to try and finalise financing discussions with potential partner African Mining Contracting Services Group on its Mpokoto gold mine in the DRC, it told interim results.
"These discussions are proving lengthy and to date, unrewarding," it said, adding it was now assessing alternative potential commercial arrangements.
It is looking to see if it can keep an interest in Mpokoto, with less exposure to execution risk and potential dilution, if it were to finance the mine project independently.
The group is also seeking to divest its interest in Mine Restoration Investments, and some of its smaller quoted and non-core investments.
As flagged, the group's focus is on graphite and the newly acquired Mahenge Liandu project in Tanzania.
So far work has indicated a substantial potential resource and Armadale said if all goes to plan, a JORC resource is possible in the near future.
The loss before tax in the six months to end June was £279,000 compared to a loss of £365,000 in the same period last year.
Shore Capital noted: "A drilling campaign was to have commenced on the Mahenge Liandu graphite project in Tanzania in Q3 2016, but the language in the interims suggests to us that this may not yet have occurred.
The broker noted that the firm ended June 2016 with £0.6mln in cash, with current assets totalling £1.3mln. Set against this was £0.58mln of payables.
It expects that another fund raise will be required in the first half of 2017.
Shares dropped 15.97% to 2p.