'Fuel hike due to Mid-East crisis'

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation in a statement issued on the recent revision of fuel prices said fuel prices in the world market have been increasing in recent times due to the crises and economic problems in the Middle East. Moreover hydro power generation reduced to a minimum due to lack of rainfall, forcing the Corporation to provide additional stocks of fuel to the CEB at subsidized rates.

The loss incurred by the Corporation as a result of this showed an increasing tendency and the government had to bear up this loss without passing it on to the people.

The statement issued under the name of Corporation chairman Harry Jayawardene said relative to the increase in the price of fuel in the international market, the government continued to supply fuel to the people at a subsidized rate without increasing prices.

Meanwhile diesel and low sulfur fuel are still being supplied to the CEB at subsidized rates.

Part of the great loss caused using to this situation is still being borne by the government.

Since the government alone could not continuously bear the loss incurred by supplying oil at subsidized rates to consumers and for power generation a minimum price increase was directed towards the people to minimize the loss incurred to a certain extent. But the government still continued to bear a major part of this loss.