Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) has initiated feasibility studies for a project which has been on the cards for a long time to expand its crude oil processing capacity at its Sapugaskanda plant up to 100,000 barrels per day, in order to boost its volume of refined petroleum products issued to the market.
“A feasibility study aimed at determining the technical, operational, environmental and commercial scope of the planned 100,000-b/d expansion is underway with a focus on several proposals to enhance the refinery’s existing capacity,” CPC Chairman, Sumith Wijesinghe said.
“This is going to be an investment worth US$ 2.5 billion. CPC doesn’t have that much of funds. We will have to accomplish it with some collaboration,” he also said.
When asked if CPC has picked an investor and any negotiations have begun, he said, “The feasibility study will be completed in six months and then we will consider the aspect of investor participation in the project”.
He made these remarks after an event held at the C. F. De Mel filling station in Colombo 2 where the CPC chair commissioned the first of the new supply of fuel pumps to be installed at 248 CPC-owned Ceypetco filling stations islandwide.
Five hundred technologically upgraded fuel pumps have been imported from China to be installed at CPC filling stations.
“There are 1,325 CPC filling stations in the country of which 248 are owned by CPC. At phase 1, we will be modernizing the 248 filling stations owned by CPC by providing these new fuel pumps and do likewise in all other CPC filling stations in phase 2 and 3. We will be importing 2,000 new pumps. The first 500 pumps which cost Rs. 400 million have reached us, and today we started commissioning them. By 2022 all CPC stations will have got them,” he also said.
“These new pumps are technologically advanced in such a way that they can’t be tampered with, by the operators or anyone else. Also, the new pumps will ensure precision of billing giving our customers the reliability and better service they have always asked for”, he noted.
According to CPC sources, the Department of Measurement Units has given approval to import these fuel pumps.
Each pump has cost between Rs. 0.7mn and Rs.1 million
“On a daily basis, vehicles in Sri Lanka consume 3,500-4,000 metric tonnes of petrol and vehicles and power stations consume 4,500-5,000 metric tonnes of diesel”, they said.
