LIOC to export lube oil from Trincomalee
Hiran H. Senewiratne
|
The Trincomalee oil
farm and blending plant. Inset: MD LIOC R. Ramakrishnan.
Pictures by Sumanachandra Ariyawansa |
Lanka IOC (LIOC) will venture into exporting of lube oil with the
setting up a modern lube blending plant in Trincomalee.
The plant will commence commercial operations next month, Managing
Director R Ramakrishnan told the Daily News Business.
He said that in line with the initiative of the Government to develop
the Eastern Province, as a special Economic Zone, LIOC invested Rs. 1.3
billion to construct this modern Lube Blending Plant with a
sophisticated laboratory facility inside the Trincomalee Oil Farm. The
plant has a capacity of 6,000 tonnes.
The company has plans to export their lube oil initially to
Mauritius, Dubai, Bangladesh and Maldives, which are potential markets
for them, LIOC Managing Director said.
The new plant will have the capability to manufacture all types of
automotive, industrial and marine lubricants and is expected to go on
stream next month to cater the local market under the Servo brand.
A fully-fledged laboratory for testing base oils additives and
finished products is also being established.
This plant will also function as a customer service laboratory for
analysing used oil samples and for condition monitoring, he said.
The plant will import basic raw materials like, Base Oils by tankers
to be pumped to the storage tanks through piggeable jetty pipelines. The
blending plant will have sophisticated filling machines for barrels as
well as small cans of various sizes ranging from 250 ml to 50 litre and
also provide large volumes in bowsers, he said.
Ramakrishnan said the plant has reached mechanical completion and the
first base oil shipment (4,653 tonnes) was unloaded on Sunday at the
Trincomalee harbour to process the lube oil to commence its operations
in October.
|
