Probe into oil pilfering incident

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation Marketing Division has launched investigations into an alleged incident involving the supply of an unauthorised stock of 9,900 litres of petrol to a filling station in Kottawa by an unknown party recently.

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Indian Oil Company (IOC) are the only two parties authorised to import petroleum to Sri Lanka and both of them have denied responsibility for supplying this particular stock of petrol to the filling station.

"Since no party other than the CPC and the IOC are able to import petrol, the investigation will be made to ascertain the party responsible for this unauthorised stock of petrol and find out whether there is a possibility of supplying contaminated petrol to filling stations by unknown persons," said the Petroleum Industries Ministry in a press release yesterday.