India To Help Lanka Develop Regional Petroleum Hub; Ioc Signs Pact

COLOMBO: India will help Sri Lanka develop its Trincomalee town as a regional petroleum hub and Indian Oil Corp has reached a joint-development pact with Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday.

The agreement as well as a task force to implement it were announced after a meeting between Modi and Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena.

"Today, Lanka IOC and Ceylon Petroleum Corporation have agreed to jointly develop the Upper Tank Farm of the China Bay Installation in Trincomalee on mutually agreed terms.

"A Joint Task Force will be constituted soon to work out the modalities. India stands ready to help Trincomalee become a regional petroleum hub," Modi said.

Lanka IOC, IndianOil's subsidiary in Sri Lanka, is the only private oil company other than the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation that operates retail petrol and diesel stations in the island nation.

Lanka IOC operates about 150 petrol and diesel stations in Sri Lanka and its major facilities here include an oil terminal at Trincomalee, Sri Lanka's largest petroleum storage facility and an 18,000 tonnes per annum capacity lubricants blending plant and state-of-the-art fuels and lubricants testing laboratory at Trincomalee.

Presently, it holds a market share of about 43.5 per cent. Modi, who reached here this morning in the last leg of his three-nation tour, further said he was looking forward to "early commencement of work on the ground in the Sampur Coal Power Project".
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