Losses at exploration firm Connemara Mining widened last year but the company said it remains confident about its future prospects. The John Teeling-led group said it made a €348,199 pretax loss in 2013, compared to €322,988 a year earlier.

The explorer posted operating losses of €348,697 for the year as against €324,083 a year ago, due to administrative expenses.

Investment revenues fell to €498,000 from €1,095,000.

Connemara is an exploration firm with principal assets in zinc/lead exploration licences as well as shear-hosted gold exploration licences in Ireland.

Mr Teeling, the company's chairman, said it expected gold drilling to take place later this year. He also said the group was considering expanding beyond Ireland and claimed interest from "unconnected parties" to invest in Connemara and to "redirect strategy into new resource areas".

“Gold and zinc have excellent long term fundamentals. There is an emerging shortage of zinc and primary gold production does not match consumption. Ireland is a good place to explore for both minerals. We have good ground, good partners and interesting discoveries,” said Mr Teeling.

Connemara has two active gold exploration projects currently - a joint venture with the Canadian company Hendrick in Wicklow/Wexford and a recently acquired wholly owned block of ten licences in Donegal.

The company also holds a potentially significant zinc discovery at Stonepark in Limerick, which is part of a joint venture with international mining group Teck. Mr Teeling said the lack of drilling by Teck had been badly received by the market, leading to a falling share price and shareholder dissent. He said Connemara had attempted to gain control of the Stonepark zinc discovery but that Teck would not engage.

“The value of the company languishes on the stock exchange and in the board’s opinion the market capitalisation of £1.5 million does not reflect the embedded value in the exploration assets, the potential of future discoveries or the fact that almost all of our exploration projects are funded by our partners. These are hard times for explorers with no investor interest, but we remain confident that the cycle will turn,” he said.

Mr Teeling said the difficulties over the Stonepark licence had also made it difficult to raise new funds. He said the group had raised sufficient funds from family and friends over the past years but that a further small financing will most likely be required again this year.