Irish oil and gas exploration company Petrel Resources widened its first-half pretax loss to €304,000 from €208,000 last year.
The company said it will continue to aggressively expand its activities in the oil -rich south of Iraq, adding the undeveloped proven and probable reserves alone are immense.
Petrel said it is basing its strategy around partnerships with the Iraqi Ministry of Oil in Baghdad, with the local communities and with Japan-based ITOCHU, one of the world's major oil companies.