Serinus Energy PLC on Thursday reported it swung to a loss in the first quarter of 2023, as revenue plummeted.

Serinus shares fell 22% to 4.49 pence each on Tuesday morning in London.

The upstream oil and gas exploration and production company that owns and operates projects in Tunisia and Romania said in the quarter, it swung to a pretax loss of $897,000 from a profit of $1.3 million a year ago.

Revenue declined 63% to $4.9 million from to $13.4 million.

Meanwhile, capital expenditures increased by 60% to $2.4 million from $1.5 million. Serinus’s cash balance decreased by 45% to $2.7 million from $4.9 million.

The decrease in working capital in the last year was caused by continued investment into operating activities pending the investigation of the pump in the Sabria W-1 well in Tunisia.

Serinus explained that operations started in December were initially successful, but unexpected conditions were encountered due to old drilling mud. Further, tubulars left in the well from operations in 1998 prevented the final removal of a 1.5-inch coiled tubing at a depth of 2,889 metres.

Looking ahead, the company expects to perform a lifting in the latter half of May of 50,344 barrels of Tunisian crude oil. Meanwhile, it reiterated that it anticipates for the Sabria N-2 well in the country to take around 30 to 40 days to complete.

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