Southwest Gas Corp. of Las Vegas on Monday reported a wider third quarter loss.
Southwest Gas said that for the quarter ended Sept. 30, it lost $15.6 million, or 34 cents per share, vs. a loss in the year-ago quarter of $4.823 million, or 11 cents.
Operating revenue increased from about $308 million to about $353 million.
Losses are normal during the third quarter, when natural gas deliveries slow because of hot weather.
The company said losses increased because of accounting adjustments in which the value of company-owned life insurance policies declined.
CEO Jeffrey Shaw said that operating income, excluding the life insurance policies, improved thanks to a strong performance by Southwest Gas’s pipeline construction services subsidiary.
The company serves more than 1.86 million customers in Nevada, Arizona and California.
Some 16,000 net new customers were added during the past 12 months, Southwest Gas said.