Sri Lanka rejects Indian offer to upgrade refinery

[Lankan Ranger]

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Sri Lanka rejects Indian offer to upgrade refinery

Sri Lanka has rejected an Indian offer to upgrade a refinery that is built to refine only Iranian oil, a minister said on Sunday.

Petroleum Minister Susil Premjayantha said the offer to upgrade the Sapugaskanda oil refinery had come from the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) but Colombo rejected it.

He said since IOC already operates fuel stations in Sri Lanka and as a result increases the fuel prices at will, handing over the refinery to the same company could hurt the local fuel distribution sector.

Premjayantha said Sri Lanka needs to upgrade the facility to refine oil from other countries as Iran oil imports will be reduced due to US sanctions on Iran.

Over 90 per cent of Sri Lanka's crude oil requirements come from Iran.

"We are being compelled to cut our oil imports from Iran because of the US sanctions so we are considering other countries.

"But to refine the oil we get from other countries we need to upgrade the facilities at the Sapugaskanda because that was built to accommodate only oil from Iran," he said.

He added that about $500 million will be required to upgrade the facilities at the refinery and Sri Lanka will seek expressions of interest to carry out the work.

Sri Lanka is seeking alternative crude oil suppliers in view of the US sanctions on Iran coming into force from June this year.

Sri Lanka rejects Indian offer to upgrade refinery - World News - IBNLive

[rai_kamal]

Soon srilanka will accept or will go for, who else then China..
Best of luck with new partener..

[harpoon]

He said since IOC already operates fuel stations in Sri Lanka and as a result increases the fuel prices at will, handing over the refinery to the same company could hurt the local fuel distribution sector.

When you hand over the power to determine prices to oil companies, thats bound to happen.

[Armstrong]

Can't Sri Lanka contract the upgradation of the Refinery to China or one of those Gulf-Nations ? For example, the Pak-Arab refinery with an ability to refine about a 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day was jointly financed and owned by the Government of Pakistan and the Government of the UAE at a cost of about $890 million dollars and generates about $ 2 billion ( Rs 200 billion) in revenue every year !

[somebozo]

He said since IOC already operates fuel stations in Sri Lanka and as a result increases the fuel prices at will, handing over the refinery to the same company could hurt the local fuel distribution sector.

Thats exploitation

[harpoon]

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Thats exploitation

Refer post# 03. India is also suffering from the same.