President Mahinda Rajapaksa today commissioned the Fuel Hydrant System and Aviation Refuelling Terminal at the Mattala International Airport in Hambantota.

The Aviation refueling facility incorporated in to the overall plan of AASL and in the design of the Hambantota International Airport by M/s. China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) did not have a Fuel Hydrant System and the required capacities in the fuel storage tanks and associated facilities, required for an International Airport of this nature.

The CPC and the Ministry of Petroleum Industries and the Minister was compelled to undertake the task of building a state of the art Fuel Hydrant System and an Aviation Refueling Terminal with the required storage capacities of Jet A1 fuel in the year 2010, due to the inability of Airport & Aviation Services (Lanka) Ltd. (AASL) to revise their original designs of CHEC, and to find additional funding requirement for the improved and enhanced design of the required Aviation Refueling facility.

Initial design of the fuel farm was only adequate for very small airport and not at all sufficient for an international airport which requires a large storage to maintain an adequate buffer stock for any eventuality, the government said.

The Fuel hydrant system within the apron area was constructed by the main Airport contractor M/s.China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) for a negotiated price of US$.7,175,326.13 without any variation claims approved. The construction of the Aviation Terminal and the interconnecting pipelines of 1.2 Km long was assigned to M/s. Amana Pipeline Construction LLC of Dubai, UAE on a competitive tender basis with a Cabinet approval for US$.31,251,504.02 which has been successfully completed without any extra cost to CPC. The total project has cost CPC nearly Rs. 5.0 billion using it’s own funding.
 
The required Jet-A1 fuel will be initially supplied by 33,000 liters capacity Road Tankers from the CPSTL Kolonnawa installation, until the SLPA Aviation storage tank farm at the Hambantota Port facility is ready for operations. A pipeline corridor from Hambantota Port to MRIA over a length of around 32 KM has been allocated by the RDA for a Jet-A1 transfer pipeline to be constructed in the future, based on the increasing demand for Jet-A1 at MRIA.