Discussions pertaining to the future of Sri Lanka’s fuel industry were held today (28 April) between the Minster of Energy Kanchana Wijesekera and United Petroleum, Australia.

Accordingly, fuel sales agreements, Government policy, logistics and the timeline for the commencement of operations in Sri Lanka were discussed in an online meeting between the two parties.

Taking to Twitter, Wijesekera stated that the date of commencement of operations in Sri Lanka will be announced by the Australian company within the next week.

Officials of the Ministry, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), the Ministry of Finance, Board of Investments (BOI), Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and the Ceylon Petroleum Storage Terminals Ltd (CPSTL) were also present at the meeting, the Minister said.

Earlier this week, Wijesekers also held a discussion with  US-based oil company RM Parks Inc. and the British multinational oil and gas company Shell PLC on commencing retail fuel sales in Sri Lanka in the first week of June this year, for which a date is due to be decided in mid-May to sign the relevant agreements.

Following a visit to the Ceylon Petroleum Storage Terminals Limited (CPSTL) tank farm last week, the technical officials of the RM Parks Inc. and Shell PLC offered to upgrade CPSTL berthing facilities to be in line with international standards and safety requirements.

Meanwhile, team of China-based Sinopec officials and technical experts are also currently in Sri Lanka to finalise the agreements and commencement of operation for retail fuel sales here, for which the relevant agreements will be signed in mid-May and operations will commence 45 days thereon.

Last month, the Cabinet of Ministers green-lighted a proposal to allow three foreign oil companies to commence their fuel distribution operations in Sri Lanka.

Thereby, retail licenses will be granted to China-based Sinopec, Australia-based United Petroleum and US-based RM Parks Inc., in collaboration with London-based Shell PLC.

Wijesekera, joining the political talk show “360°” on TV Derana earlier this month, revealed that each company will handle 150 CPC dealer-operated filling stations in the local market.

At present, a total of 1,142 filling stations are under the purview of the CPC, however, the corporation fully owns only 234 of them, the minister explained, adding that 450 out of the remaining 908 filling stations owned by private distributors would be allocated to the three foreign oil companies.