Supply diesel at lower price or face action: Lanka to IOC

Fri, Jun 20 08:50 PM

The Sri Lankan government has asked LIOC, the Lankan subsidiary of India's oil major Indian Oil Corporation, to reduce diesel prices on par with the country's state-run oil company, unless the government will take action against it.

Surging global oil prices has forced oil retail companies in Sri Lanka to sell diesel at a loss despite increase in retail prices.

To mitigate its losses, LIOC has increased its prices higher than those offered by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) forcing consumers to buy the fuel from the state company instead of LIOC.

"Lankan Indian Oil Corporation (LIOC) sells around 20 million litres of diesel every month and its sales have come down to a trickle after they increased the price even higher than CPC to minimise losses," Sri Lankan Oil Minister A H M Fawzy said.

"I have written to the LIOC asking them to bring down the prices of diesel and to supply adequate kerosene from their outlets as the common people here are suffering due to constraints in supply as they have to buy the fuel only from CPC," Fawzy said.

He had on Thursday told the Parliament that the government could even consider taking over more than 150 petrol and diesel stations operated by LIOC if the company did not bring down the diesel prices on par with CPC.

However, according to sources, the letter written by Fawzy to LIOC does not warn about any takeover.

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