Concern over technical problems at Ramco Energy's Seven Heads field off the coast of Cork outweighed a swing into profit and a surge in sales in the interim.
Ramco said it swung to a pre-tax profit in the six months to end June as sales jumped almost four-fold.
The Aberdeen-based oil and gas exploration and production company swung to a pretax profit of £1.3 million sterling from a pretax loss of £1.7 million in the year-earlier period.
First-half sales surged to £23.9 million from £6 million helped by a full six months of revenue under the Gas Sales Agreement (GSA) for the Seven Heads gas field. However, as reported previously, the production problems encountered at Seven Heads resulted in additional costs.
A technical report on the production problems at the Seven Heads gas field was completed recently and is with its partners, the Irish regulatory authorities and its bankers for their review. Detailed findings are expected to be announced during the next few weeks.
The company said the existing waiver from its bankers has been extended to allow the review of the technical report to be completed.
The poorer-than-expected performance of the Seven Heads gas field has had a knock-on effect, it said, adding that it has generating less cash than expected and so has been forced to cut spending on other projects.