Bottle maker Vidrala to raise prices after gas costs hit profit

MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish glass maker Vidrala plans to raise the price of its bottles after soaring natural gas costs hit its profitability in the first nine months of the year, it said on Friday.

Even though Vidrala's revenues rose 24% in January-September from the same period a year ago, its net profit per share fell 37%. The company blamed one single factor - the soaring natural gas price.

Higher bottle prices will help gradually raise its operating margin in the fourth quarter, the company said.

Vidrala expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation to represent 20% of sales in the fourth quarter up from 15.6% in the first nine months this year.

Vidrala's shares were up 6.0% on Friday morning, briefly topping the Madrid stock exchange. The blue-chip index Ibex-35 was down 2.34%.

Vidrala said it expected demand for glass bottles to remain strong.

Higher bottle prices will feed in to Spanish inflation, which has dipped over the past two months from a three-decade high of 10.8% in July.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Alex Richardson and Mark Potter)