UPDATE 2-Oxus Gold slips to H1 loss, shares slump

* H1 loss $5.2 mln vs $1.8 mln profit a year ago

* Revenue falls to $488,000 from $1.65 mln

* Shares fall as much as 25 pct (Adds broker comment, updates share movement details)

Sept 16 (Reuters) - Central Asia-focused gold miner Oxus Gold Plc (OXS.L) swung to a first-half loss on lower revenue and due to a restructuring of its 50 percent-owned Amantaytau Goldfields (AGF) joint venture's operating cost base.

At 0910 GMT, Oxus Gold shares were down 23.33 percent at 11.5 pence on the London Stock Exchange. They hit a low of 11.19 pence in early session.

Brokerage Fox-Davies Capital said the loss was expected since processing operations at the carbon-in-pulp plant and the Vysokovoltnoye heap leach operation were temporarily shut down early in the half.

However, the brokerage cut its price target on the stock to 30 pence from 33 pence, saying that the company's first-half loss was slightly larger than it expected.

It has a "buy" recommendation on the stock.

The company, which had scaled back the Amantaytau development plans after delays in raising cash, said on Wednesday it was in talks with a major Chinese contracting and financing group for financing AGF's underground sulphide mine.

The first underground production is still targeted to take place in the second half of 2011, said the company, whose primary operations are in Uzbekistan.

For the six months ended June 30, the company posted a pretax loss of $5.2 million, compared with a pretax profit of $1.8 million a year earlier.

The AGF joint venture contributed an attributable loss of $1.56 million, including $1.69 million of exceptional costs related to restructuring the cost base.

First-half gross revenue, excluding attributable joint venture income, fell to $488,000 from $1.65 million. (Reporting by Balachander Surianarayanan in Bangalore; Editing by Jarshad Kakkrakandy)