Around 27% of Sri Lanka’s petroleum product sales during FY2025, roughly 1.4 million MT, were sold outside the four licensed suppliers recognised by the Government (Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), Lanka Indian Oil Corporation, Sinopec, and R M Parks) as a vast majority of it consisted of bunkering fuel utilised by the maritime sector, SenFin Finance’s recently released Fuel Imports and Consumption report said.
Referring to the period between April 2024 and March 2025, the report said: “FY2025 baseline: the four licensed suppliers imported 5.01 million MT ($ 3,256 million), while total product sales were 6.45 million MT, a gap of 1.44 million MT, of which 1.32 million MT is bunkering fuel traded outside those four suppliers.”
According to the report, maritime sector fuel demand was met by way of 34 separate importers via 12 bunkering licences. This makes the standard calculation of Sri Lanka’s fuel import bill, which is based on primary retail suppliers, an inadequate means of assessing the full size of Sri Lanka’s fuel import exposure.
Sri Lanka’s fuel import bill for H1 2026 stood at $ 3.168 billion, according to Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, while the H1 2025 fuel import bill was $ 1.995 billion, official data shows. Between end-February through to June, fuel import consumption had grown exponentially driven by geopolitical volatility and elevated global oil prices, and was supported by a government subsidy as a consequence of the ongoing inflationary pressures.
Between April and June of 2026, Sri Lanka allocated Rs 73 billion actual payments to fuel suppliers, official data shows. Further, the report added that the Ceylon Petroleum Terminals Limited (CPSTL), the national logistics and distribution company for petroleum products, continues to offer only a 27-day storage capacity against the sizeably larger annual fuel demand.
“CPSTL storage of 474,404 MT is barely one month of cover against 6.45 million MT of annual sales.”
Despite Sri Lanka’s liberalisation narrative around the relatively new market entrants, Sinopec and R M Parks, the report also notes that the market remains largely unchanged, as the Chinese companies predominantly took over existing CPC stations rather than building new ones, aside from establishing 50 new sites.
“CPC: 71.4% of 2025 fuel deliveries and 886 of the 1,436 filling stations. Sinopec took 150 and R M Parks 130 CPC dealer stations plus up to 50 new sites; United Petroleum Lanka has withdrawn,” the report stated.
Furthermore, with CPC’s 71.4% market dominance, its Sapugaskanda refinery processes only 26% of total national product sales and roughly 37% of CPC’s own product supply indicating that the remaining 63% of CPC’s sales are met through imported finished products.
“Sapugaskanda processed approximately 1.7 million MT in 2025 – about 26% of the 6.45 million MT of products sold and roughly 37% of CPC’s product supply.”