Broken Hill based mining company Perilya announced that AUD 77.2 million loss for the last six months of 2008.

Perilya said that declining global mineral prices and redundancy pay outs are responsible for the after tax loss.

Mr Paul Arndt MD of Perilya in a statement said that zinc prices fell by 51% and lead prices by 63% in the six month period. Last year the company sacked 440 workers from its Broken Hill operations. He added that however, it is optimistic about the future and that it is on track to reach its long term production targets at Broken Hill.

(Sourced from abc.net)