Fuel Retailers Including Lankan IOC Hike Oil Prices In Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's fuel retailers, Lankan Indian Oil Corp., Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, and Sinopec, hiked the prices of oil and gas on Monday, citing the increase in global petroleum rates.

The price rise of fuel by the retail companies also came as debt-ridden Sri Lanka has started to execute stringent reforms to generate revenue to stabilise its economy.

Ceylon Petroleum Corporation is a state-owned fuel company in Sri Lanka. The Lankan Indian Oil Company is the subsidiary company in Sri Lanka of the Indian Oil Corporation and Sinopec, a Chinese company that recently got permission to operate in the island nation.

"The retail prices of fuel have been raised with effect from Monday with all three fuel retailers CPC, LIOC and Sinopec affecting price changes," said an official statement.

After the price hike, Sinopec’s retail prices remain the lowest compared to both CPC and LIOC.

The Octane 92 petrol is being sold at rupees 358 per litre at Sinopec stations while the CPC and LIOC are selling the litre at 365 rupees.

Similarly, with auto diesel and super diesel varieties, the Sinopec prices remain lower than CPC and LIOC retail prices.

Sinopec last month followed the Indian Oil Company’s local operation LIOC to become the third player in the local fuel retailing operations.

With an investment of 100 million dollars for import, storage, and sale of fuel they took over 150 privately owned fuel outlets which up until then were managed by the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation.

The government announced in April that China’s Sinopec, United Petroleum of Australia, and RM Parks of the USA are slated to enter Sri Lanka’s retail market under a collaboration with Shell PLC.

They are to operate on the island with licenses valid for 20 years to import, store and distribute fuel.

LIOC, the local operation of IOC, has been operating in Sri Lanka since 2003.