The Cabinet-approved three foreign oil companies are expected to commence their fuel distribution operations in Sri Lanka during the next two months, said Power & Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera.
Sri Lanka is planning to ink respective agreements with the three companies in the coming two weeks, said the lawmaker, who joined political talk show yesterday (03).
Last week, the Cabinet of Ministers green-lighted the proposal to grant retail licences to China-based Sinopec, Australia-based United Petroleum and US-based RM Parks Inc., in collaboration of Shell PLC.
The Cabinet approval came after the relevant procurement committees gave their go-ahead and recommendations to award the three companies retail licences to operate in Sri Lanka.
In March, President Ranil Wickremesinghe-led government decided on the divestiture of seven key state-owned enterprises (SOEs) including the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, SriLankan Airlines, Sri Lanka Telecom. To this end, the a SOE Restructuring Unit was also set up by the government.
Each company will handle 150 CPC dealer-operated filling stations in the local market, noted Minister Kanchana Wijesekera.
At present, a total of 1,142 filling stations are under the purview of the CPC, however, the corporation fully owns only 234 of them, the minister explained, adding that 450 out of remaining 908 filling stations owned by private distributors would be allocated to the three foreign oil companies.
In addition, these firms will be permitted to establish up 50 filling stations of their own in the country, he concluded.
Source By themorning.lk
