Petroleum Ministry rubbishes contaminated oil canard

Ishara Mudugamuwa

The Petroleum Industries Ministry completely rejected as baseless allegations made by certain groups that contaminated oil had been unloaded at the Trincomalee Port.

Issuing a special media release, the Petroleum Industries Ministry said that Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC) imported 5,000 metric tons of diesel and 26,000 metric tons of petrol on February 8 this year, including loading of diesel stock was prohibited due to their low quality following laboratory tests conducted before unloading the oil stocks.

But permission was given to unload the petrol stocks as there was no issue about the quality of petrol. Accordingly, 10,000 metric tons of petrol was unloaded at the Colombo Port and the vessel has gone to Trincomalee to unload the other 16,000 metric tons of petrol.

Two laboratory officers of the Ceylon Petrolium Corporation has also gone to Trincomale to re - test samples of the petrol stock. The Lanka Indian Oil Company has provided samples of petrol stocks to the Ceylong Petrolieum Corpration. Issuing these petrol stock to the market has been stopped untill submitting the final report of all these samples.

The diesel stock will never be unloaded and the Lanka Indian Oil has already made the letter of credit for the re-exportation of the diesel stock.