Fuel imports, storage for foreign /private suppliers
Sri Lanka’s Power and Energy Ministry has devised a new system of providing fee-based on-shore storage facilities owned by the state to fuel importers, with the fuel sold to the state as and when required.
The aim is to prevent the delay in clearing oil shipments at the port for several weeks due to the inability of making the payments for spot purchase owing to the dollar scarcity as well as to avoid incurring massive demurrage costs from such tankers, a senior Ministry official divulged.
Tankers ordered by private suppliers will be allowed to unload their consignments after necessary tests by pumping fuel to Ceylon Petroleum Corporation Storage Terminals Ltd (CPSTL) storage facilities, he said.
All the payments will have to be met by the importers without delays and there won’t be any burden on the Government for demurrage payments.
The selected suppliers will be given permission to use some of the storage tanks as bonded warehouses maintaining fuel stocks and they will have to release it as and when the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) required it after paying a few for using these facilities.
At least three suppliers affiliated with reputed international petroleum companies of oil producing countries have stepped in to import fuel; he said adding that they have been selected after the evaluation of their Expression of Interests (EOIs).
The selected importers will have to import oil using their own dollar funds without buying dollars in the domestic market.
They have to prove “sound financial viability and the ability of importing petroleum products by utilising their own forex for an agreed period without depending on the Sri Lankan forex market,” the EOI indicated.
The Petroleum Products Special Provision Amendment Bill which was passed in Parliament last week allows foreign suppliers to enter as retail operators, eliminate the monopoly of the CPC and liberalise the energy sector.
In another attempt to ease the fuel crisis the Ministry has allowed marine bunker companies to import diesel and furnace oil for industries as the CPC found it difficult to make dollar payments for fuel shipments. But this has not materialised due to logistic issues, he added.
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