25 May 2016 09:59 am
By Udara Liyanarathna The flood-hit liquid petroleum gas (LP gas) plant of Laugfs Gas PLC in Mabima would be back in full swing within this week, a top company official told Mirror Business. “We have completely cleaned the facility now and foreign suppliers of our machinery are currently carrying out the recovery processes.
Hopefully by this Thursday we will be able to go fully operational,” Laugfs Gas Group CEO/MD Thilak De Silva said. He said the company yesterday was able to dispatch 12, 000 LP gas cylinders to avoid any shortfall in the market. However, a quick survey carried out by Mirror Business revealed a dearth of Laugfs LP gas cylinders in the market with several gas vendors saying that new stocks had not reached them.
Pictures of a large number of yellow-coloured LP gas cylinders floating at a yard on the Biyagama road were trending in social media during last week. The 2, 500 tonne gas plant in Mabima is the main operational centre for Laugfs Gas PLC as all LP gas related operations including filling, storage and distribution are done at the facility.
The cylinder plant has the capacity of filling 8000 cylinders of different sizes per day through an automated process. Also, it houses Laugfs Engineering, which undertakes the production of gas cylinders. According to its official website, Laugfs Gas holds more than 30 percent market share in the domestic and commercial sector, 60 percent in the industrial bulk LPG market and 85 percent market share in the auto gas retailing sector. According to the latest available Laugfs Gas PLC annual report, several upgrade and expansion programmes were carried out at the plant in Mabima, to cater to the growing market demand.
These included the extension of the plant building, introduction of new carousel for 5 Kg cylinder filling as well as a modern valve changing machine, and the addition of another 250 metric tonne storage tank.