Flogas Ireland, the country’s second biggest liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) supplier, is currently undergoing a redundancy programme aimed at eliminating up to 20 jobs as it seeks to cut costs and boost profitability.
The company is a unit of publicly-quoted fuel distribution-to-health services group DCC and it is understood to employ about 220 people on the island of Ireland.
Some 85 per cent of these are in the Republic, which is the focus of the voluntary severance programme. A spokesman for the company declined to comment.
Sources said that the cost-cutting initiative was announced internally earlier this summer and it is understood to be well underway. Flogas Ireland is led by managing director John Rooney, based out of Drogheda, Co Louth.
DCC said in its latest annual report for the financial year to the end of March that Flogas Ireland has 48,000 customers and is a “leading supplier of natural gas to SME customers as well as a modest position in the domestic supply sector”.
DCC said in May that its full-year operating profit grew by 11.1 per cent to £383 million on its previous financial year, with its LPG division making up the biggest portion of earnings, at £167.5 million.
The group, led by chief executive Donal Murphy, told investors at its annual general meeting last month that it expects group operating profits for the current financial year to be “well ahead of the prior year”, driven by acquisitions completed last year.
