• Agreements to be signed mid-May

Foreign oil Companies, namely, the United States’ based RM Parks Inc. and China’s Sinopec, and the British multinational oil and gas Company Shell PLC are scheduled to commence retail fuel sales in Sri Lanka from June onwards.

A team of officials and technical experts from China’s Sinopec visited Sri Lanka in order to finalise the agreements for the commencement of operations for retail fuel sales, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera said. Accordingly, the timeline, the conditions of the relevant agreement and other concerns were discussed at a meeting held at the Ministry of Power and Energy premises on Tuesday (25) between the team of officials and technical experts from the Chinese energy giant and Wijesekera. Taking to Twitter, Wijesekera revealed that officials from the Ministry, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the Board of Investment, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and the Ceylon Petroleum Storage Terminals Limited (CPSTL) were also present at the meeting. It was decided that the agreements would be signed in mid-May, and that the operation would commence 45 days thereon.

RM Parks Inc. and Shell PLC too have held a discussion with Wijesekera on commencing retail fuel sales in Sri Lanka in the first week of June of this year. Wijesekera held a virtual meeting with the officials of the two Companies yesterday (26) to discuss the agreements, policies, logistics, and timeline pertaining to the commencement of operations here. Accordingly, it was decided to set a date in mid-May to sign the relevant agreements, Wijesekera said in a Tweet. Following a visit to the CPSTL tank farm last week, the technical officials of the RM Parks Inc. and Shell PLC offered to upgrade the CPSTL berthing facilities to be in line with international standards and safety requirements, Wijesekera said further.

Last month (March), the Cabinet of Ministers greenlit a proposal to allow foreign oil Companies to commence their fuel distribution operations in Sri Lanka. Thereby, retail licences will be granted to Sinopec, the Australia based United Petroleum and RM Parks Inc. in collaboration with the London, England based Shell PLC. Wijesekera, joining a political talk show on television 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, Wijesekera explained, adding that 450 out of the remaining 908 filling stations owned by private distributors would be allocated to the said foreign oil companies.