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PM agrees in principle 

India offers Lanka expertise for oil, gas exploration

by Ravi Ladduwahetty

Visiting Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Ram Naik has offered his country's assistance to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for exploration of oil and natural gas in Sri Lankan territorial waters to which Prime Minister has agreed in principle.

We have offered Sri Lanka assistance in the sphere of exploration of oil and natural gas in Sri Lankan territorial waters and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has agreed in principle, Minister Naik told the 'Daily News' in an exclusive interview at Hotel Taj Samudra yesterday.

"We have also offered Sri Lanka to provide assistance in exploration in selected blocks if the Sri Lankan Government provides us with these which are expected to prove successful in the light of the successful discoveries of petroleum and natural gas in the Krishna Godawari and Kaveri basins which are in the eastern Indian seas," Minister Naik told this newspaper following his meeting with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. He explained that the recent efforts of the wholly state owned flagship-Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation in oil and exploration had paid rich dividends where oil and natural gas was found 400 metres below the sea and that the recent findings of these products at the Krishna Godawari basin was below 1700 metres.

Minister Naik, who was in Sri Lanka to open the first Indian Oil Corporation petrol shed at Maligawatte yesterday, said that the restoration of the Trincomalee oil tanks would enhance the fuel storage capacity of the country by a million metric tonnes in the light of the 3.5 million tonne annual demand and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation refinery was able to process only 2 million tonnes annually. IOC will be able to provide the deficit, he said.

He said that the Indian Prime Minister Atal Bheharee Vajpayee had assured the Prime Minister and the Sri Lankan Government that India will at the forefront of Sri Lanka's energy security even if the supplies from the Middle East were broken in the aftermath of the US led war on Iraq.

Minister Naik had also expressed concerns of the Indian Government about the loss of over 200 lives of Sri Lankans in the recent floods and the Prime Minister had also thanked the visiting Minister for the prompt humanitarian assistance of his Government to Sri Lanka at its time of need. Asked for comments about the Sri Lankan peace process, he said that the best wishes of the Indian Government were there for an early settlement.

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