CALGARY — Pure Technologies Ltd. (TSX:PUR), a Calgary company which provides monitoring of pipelines and other infrastructure, widened its net loss in the first quarter on problems at a major contract in the war-torn North African country of Libya.
Pure announced late Thursday it lost $5 million or 11 cents a share in the three months ended March 31. That compared with a loss of $1.9 million or five cents a year earlier.
The company said it had a revenue shortfall of $11.5 million caused by the deferral of an equipment shipment to Libya’s Great Man-Made water supply project and interruption in service, combined with one-time restructuring costs related to the project.
Revenue in the quarter rose 36 per cent to $7.8 million from $5.7 million.
“Our first quarter results were severely affected by the political events in Libya,” chairman Jamie Paulson said in a release after markets closed.
As for Libya, Pure said the company is still awaiting payment for work on the water project, which was suspended after a civil war broke out in the country earlier this year and NATO air strikes were launched against the Libyan military.
“Also, business in the Americas got off to a slower than expected start due to contract timing issues; this is typical of the normal quarterly volatility we experience in our business and we expect that revenues will strengthen over the balance of the year.”
“In spite of these issues, we were still able to grow revenues by 36 per cent over last year due to strong growth in our technical services business.”
“We successfully evacuated all of our expatriate personnel from Libya and we acted quickly and decisively to reduce costs related to the project following suspension of work,” Paulson said.
We are pleased to advise that we have recently received permits from the Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, pursuant to the Canada and United Nations Libya sanctions regulations, which allow us to receive payment of outstanding receivables related to the Great Man-Made River contract and to complete our contractual obligations on the project.
“Notwithstanding the granting of the permits we currently have no clear visibility on when payment will be received, although we have been advised by the management of the Great Man-Made River Authority that the completion of equipment deliveries and the resumption of the monitoring program is one of the top priorities for the agency.”