Plywood maker Greenply Industries today reported a marginal decline in its net profit for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 at Rs 11.43 crore due to under-utilisation of its new laminate unit.
The company had posted a net profit of Rs 11.44 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal, Greenply Industries said in a statement.
The net sales during the quarter, however, increased by 5.31 per cent at Rs 218 crore, against Rs 207 crore in the year-ago period, it added.
The company has started using one of the three installed production lines "at our new laminate plant in Himachal Pradesh and hence it is underutilised, and because of this we are having higher operating cost and less profit", Greenply Chief Financial Officer V Venkatramani said.
The company would require few more quarters to start making profits from the plant, he said, adding "the total capacity from the three lines will be 33 lakh sheets per annum, while that of the single line is 13.2 lakh sheets a year".
Besides, the company is incurring huge input costs as the plant is running on diesel generators for 16 hours every day due to unavailability of power.
"Our power cost has gone up to Rs 9 per unit from Rs 4 per unit. We hope to get regular power connection from January, then the situation will improve," Venkatramani said.
