By Shiran Ranasinghe

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) said yesterday that it had only 6,000 tonnes of petrol and 12,000 tonnes of diesel. As a result, about 80% of the country’s gas stations remain closed.

However, a ship carrying 40,000 tonnes of diesel arrived yesterday. This is the last fuel shipment under the current Indian credit line. The government was finalising another Indian credit line to the tune of USD 500 million for fuel, the CPC said.

Sri Lanka needs about 3,500 tonnes of petrol, 6,000 tonnes of diesel and about 800 tonnes of kerosene, a day.

“We are trying to ensure that there is some level of petrol availability”, a CPC official said.

President of the All Ceylon Filling Station Owners Association, Shelton Fernando, said that the CPC now insisted that gas station owners make cash payments when orders were placed for fuel.

“A lot of gas station owners now do not even order fuel. We need to pay the CPC about five million rupees to order a bowser of petrol and a bowser of diesel. It wouldn’t be a problem if we get the bowser soon afterwards. There are delays in delivery of fuel.

Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery is now producing 825 tonnes of diesel, 320 tonnes of petrol and 620 tonnes of kerosene a day. If the refinery does not receive a new shipment of crude oil soon, it will have to close down again on 28 June, according to trade unionists.

The CPC official said that after 70 days of closure, the refinery had started producing furnace oil, tar, diesel, kerosene, naphtha and petrol, and the government had to do everything in its power to keep it functioning.

“What is being produced at Sapugaskanda now plays a vital role in fuel supply. However, the refinery is not working at full capacity and what it produces is nowhere near what the country requires”, he said.

The 90,000 tonnes of crude oil that the country has purchased was only adequate for 20-25 days, he said.

“If the government fails to get a new crude oil shipment, we will have to close down again. Even if the refinery operates at full capacity, it can process 5,500 tonnes of fuel a day. However, the government’s priority has not been to purchase crude, and therefore we are operating at half capacity,” he said.

The official said that the CPC had been able to provide some kerosene shipments after Sapugaskanda recommenced operations.

According to him the refinery needed a continuous supply of crude oil because the process of closing and restarting was bad for the facility and time-consuming.

In 2021, there were those who claimed that importing diesel and petrol directly was more profitable than operating a refinery, the official said. “However, we have seen the result of this hare-brained scheme. Kerosene queues are a permanent fixture of daily life. Many industries face furnace oil shortages and there is a shortage of tar.

Crude oil should be at the top of the government’s import priorities,” he said.