• Two tankers with 37,500 metric tons of fuel at the port of Colombo has started unloading last night after the government paid demurrages yesterday   
• 10,000 tonnes of fuel to the CPC ample for 8 days with 1,500 MTs per day

By Sandun A Jayasekera

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) will release 10,000 tonnes of fuel to the Ceylon Electricity Board(CEB), an amount sufficient for eight days, Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila said. 

He said the decision to cut power and thereby plunge the country into darkness is determined not by him, power minister Gamini Lokuge, the CPC or the CEB but by the foreign currency situation in the country.   

“However, two tankers with 37,500 metric tonnes of fuel that had been anchored at the port of Colombo has started unloading last night after the government paid demurrages yesterday. Therefore, the CPC would be in a position to release fuel to the CEB for about eight days preventing an immediate power outage in the days to come, Minister Gammanpila added.   
“We will release 10,000 tonnes of fuel to the CPC ample for 8 days with 1,500 MTs per day,” he noted.   

Addressing the weekly post cabinet news briefing held online last morning, Minister Gammanpila said the power crisis in Sri Lanka was not the result of a fuel shortage in the global market, price increase or for any other reason but for the foreign currency shortage in the country.   
There is a steady supply of fuel to Sri Lanka but making payments in dollars to them is the problem.