Friday 27th June 2014
by Maheesha Mudugamuwa
Petroleum Industries Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa yesterday categorically denied that the country had been buying Iranian crude through third parties to bypass United States sanctions.
Addressing a media briefing in Colombo yesterday Minister Yapa said, "We have not bought a single drop of Iranian crude oil from a third party since 2011 after the US imposed sanctions against that country, though the country’s only oil refinery has been tailor made for Iranian crude oil."
In the last week several media reports, however, cited Media and Information Minister Keheliya Rambukwella as having said that Sri Lanka had been buying Iranian crude oil from various countries with some understanding with US.
Minister Yapa said that he didn’t know the reason why his Cabinet colleague had said so, but as the Petroleum Minister of Sri Lanka he assured that the Ceylon Petroleum Cooperation (CPC) had not purchased Iranian crude oil from third parties and they had not entered into such agreements with anyone.
However the government had been struggling with sanctions on Iranian crude, because the country’s only Oil Refinery at Sapugaskanda is configured to run on Iranian crude.
Minister Yapa also said that the Sapugaskanda refinery would be upgraded soon as they had now reached the final level of the relevant paper work.
Countries like Japan, United States, Korea and France had expressed their willingness to upgrade the refinery; he said adding that they would also call tenders for the laying of new petroleum oil pipeline in the near future.
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