Rift Oil PLC posted a widening in pretax loss for the first half and said it is now waiting for processing results from 54 km of seismic data and a study defining commercialisation strategy for gas discovery at its Douglas 1 well in Papua New Guinea. The oil and gas exploration company with assets in Papua New Guinea said its first-half pretax loss widened to 48,000 stg from a loss of 36,000 stg in the
year-earlier period. It had no turnover in either period. Rift Oil said processing results of new seismic data from Douglas 1, expected before Dec 25, will be used to define appraisal well targets on the Douglas field and also to more tightly define the Puk Puk target, which is a separate structure to Douglas within PPL 235.