Sri Lanka’s CPC to take legal action against newspaper for Russia oil story
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s state owned fuel supplier the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) will take legal action against a privately run daily newspaper over a story on a crude oil deal with Russia, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekara said.
The Divaina article claimed that Russia had offered to supply oil worth 110 US dollars a barrel at 35 dollars each. Meanwhile, the article claimed, a Russian oil tanker carrying 90,000 tons of crude oil has been docked at the Port of Colombo for several weeks and Sri Lanka had yet to take Russia up on its offer of selling oil at the “extremely cheap price” of 72.6 million dollars.
“The Ministry of Energy of Sri Lanka has ordered this Russian oil not directly but through the Coral Energy Company in Dubai. This Coral Energy Association is owned by a businessman affiliated with a local politician. It was revealed for the first time that Russian oil was being ordered through Dubai. Although the Russian ambassador offered to supply oil directly to Sri Lanka, the Ministry of Energy did not agree,” the Divaina story said.
Energy Minister Wijesekara said in a tweet that a complaint will also be made by the CPC to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to investigate the allegations.
Wijesekara said the CPC and the ministry have received more than 70 proposals in the last month for the supply of petroleum products.
“All proposals are evaluated by a committee comprising government officials and issued LOIs once the requirements are fulfilled. Most proposals fulfil the technical requirements but fail to fulfil the payment methods that can be adopted by CPC due to the country and banking ratings. Urge anyone with a viable proposal to submit it to the CPC or Ministry rather than spreading false and misleading news,” he said. (Colombo/Jun01/2022)
