• Awaiting PwCI report on Upper Tank Farm
• Tender for designing pipelines soon
• Possibility of a solar power plant

There is adequate space available for the construction of new large-capacity oil tanks at the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm, the Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC) told The Sunday Morning last week.

LIOC Managing Director Manoj Gupta, responding to a question on the Government’s ambition to make Trincomalee a regional energy hub, said the company had identified space which could be used to set up new large-capacity tanks to further storage capacity at the facility, depending on the recommendations of a feasibility report which was being prepared.

According to Gupta, the LIOC is pushing for early completion of the Upper Tank Farm (UTF) and is awaiting a feasibility study by PricewaterhouseCoopers India (PwCI) to proceed with phase two. He expressed confidence that phase one could be completed by December.

“We are engaged in the earliest commissioning of the UTF and subsequently we will be moving ahead with phase two, which is the remaining 51 tanks. We are awaiting a report from PwCI. It is not only the utilisation of the existing tanks; there is adequate space available and, depending on the suggestions of the feasibility report, we can also explore the possibility of setting up new large-capacity tanks. The space is available for it,” Gupta explained.

According to him, LIOC is on the verge of finalising details of a tender which will be floated to pick a designer for the UTF and the relevant pipelines required to carry oil or fuel to and from the tanks.

“The design of the pipeline, the specification on whether to carry white oil or black oil, and whether the existing jetty can be used or if we need to consider a new separate one will be part of that tender,” Gupta said, adding that for the first 10 tanks LIOC would prefer, if possible, to use the existing jetty as building a new one may take more time. 

He stressed that the LIOC did not want to see the projects being delayed.

He told The Sunday Morning that Trinco Petroleum Terminal Ltd. (TPTL), a joint venture between State-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and LIOC to refurbish 61 oil tanks in Trincomalee, had been successfully registered with the Board of Investment (BOI).

“This is an important step forward. We are looking forward to some incentives in the form of some relaxation in the tax structures, as well as in the provision of the policies,” the LIOC MD said.

Gupta also pointed out that once the UTF, the designs for the pipelines, and phase two were finalised, there was a possibility of using some of the space which was not needed for the petroleum operations to house a ground-based solar power plant. “We have a lot of solar potential in the country. We can use it to harness that, perhaps give it to the grid,” he opined.