Setting up a refinery at Sri Lanka’s Trincomalee Port has been under discussion Managing Director of Lanka India Oil Corporation, Manoj Gupta said.
Publicly traded Lanka IOC, a unit of Indian Oil Corporation and state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation own 49/51 percent stakes in Trinco Petroleum Terminal Ltd, which control 51 tanks in a World War Ii era tank farm by the Trincomallee Port.
“It is a discussion that is taken up at very high levels. Some time back a feasibility study was also carried out.”
Tricomallee is the second largest non-tidal natural harbhour in the world, with the potential of becoming an energy hub.
The immediate focus was to refurbish 10 tanks and build pipelines in a 20 million dollar project, Gupta told a Colombo International Martime and Logistics Conference.
The balance would 51 tanks would be refurbished in a later 50 million US dollar.