Kerosene queues to continue until refinery fully operational

By Shiran Ranasinghe

The kerosene queues will continue until the re-opened Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery commenced operations fully, a senior Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) official said yesterday.He added that during previous weeks the CPC had released a large amount of kerosene to refuel aircraft.The official said that the chemical composition between jet fuel and kerosene was negligible.By Thursday (02) night, CPC only had 386 MT of jet fuel, he said.The official added that the kerosene consumption in the country was about 600 MT per month, but the CPC was not in a position to supply that quantity.Sri Lanka last week received a crude oil shipment and the Refinery was expected to produce large amounts of kerosene from the crude oil.

“Until Sapugaskanda is fully operational, we will continue to have kerosene queues. There were kerosene queues in urban centres and in areas where there are a lot of fishermen and in the estate sector. We understand the suffering of the people. But there is nothing we can do,” he said.

The official added that CPC had no idea how it would import fuel after the Indian credit line was exhausted.He said that there were adequate quantities of fuel to last two weeks. Although the government had planned to buy fuel through spot tenders, a lot of companies were hesitant to supply fuel due to the country’s economic woes.By 02 June, the CPC had 18,825 metric tonnes of Diesel, 42 MT of Super Diesel, 33,498 MT of 92 Octane Petrol, 13,067 MT of 95 Octane Petrol, and 386 MT of jet fuel.

However, the Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery was expected to be fully functional by next week after a technical hiccup last week and that was the only silver lining for the country, he said.The CPC official said that the government should focus on importing crude oil because the refinery could produce by-products like kerosene, furnace oil and jet fuel.

According to him the Refinery needs to be provided with a continuous supply of crude oil because shutting it down and restarting the refinery is an expensive and a time-consuming endeavour.In 2021, there were those who claimed that importing diesel and petrol directly was more feasible than operating a refinery, he said. “However, we have seen the result of this. Kerosene queues are a permanent fixture of daily life. Many industries face furnace oil shortages and there is a shortage of tar. Crude oil should be at the top of the government’s import priorities,” he said.