ECONOMYNEXT- Sri Lanka’s Laugfs Gas Plc, which is a cooking gas distributor, which has been hit by price controls and forex shortages, said it lost 950 million rupees in the September 2021 quarter taking total losses up to the first half to 1.8 billion rupees.
The loss per share for the quarter was 2.46 rupees. For the six months to September the group lost 1.85 billion rupees, up 936 percent from a year earlier.
Laugfs’ share remained flat at 16.70 rupees on Tuesday after the interim accounts were released.
Laugfs Gas revenues in for the September 2021 grew 26 percent from a year earlier to 11 billion rupees in the quarter, while cost of sales grew 56 percent to 11.2 billion rupees and creating a 111 rupee gross loss.
Finance costs have slipped to 498 million rupees from 639 million rupees a year earlier.
The gas provider was faced with price controls by Sri Lanka’s Consumers Affairs Authroity (CAA) that created shortages in the market for several other essentials by imposing price controls.
Price controls have since been lifted. However officials have said they find it difficult to open letters of credit to import gas.
Laugfs has accumulated losses of 1.8 billion rupees and net assets were negative by 1.32 billion rupees by end September. (Colombo/Nov16/2021)