Energy Minister stresses the need of using fuel sparingly

Sri Lanka is set to face a fuel shortage as the country’s foreign exchange reserves are rapidly depleting making it difficult to import necessary crude and refined oil stocks in the coming months, Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila said.

Issuing a twitter message, he called on the people (motorists) to use fuel sparingly restricting their travelling in a situation of a foreign exchange crisis.

The country has spent 18 percent of import expenditure on fuel imports during the present half of this year and it will definitely increase to 25 percent in the next few months if the people fail to conserve fuel by restricting their movements, he disclosed.

One of the main reasons for this fuel crisis was the continuous rise in global crude oil prices over the past few months and market trends indicate that it will continue to rise.

In 2019 alone, the foreign exchange spent on oil imports was US$3.67 billion. The cost spent for fuel imports was reduced to $2.32 billion in 2020 due to the ban on vehicle imports and the reduction in international oil prices to $45.57 in 2020 from the previous price of $68.80 per barrel in 2019.

However, the price of a crude oil barrel in 2021 has exceeded $70. Therefore, although the ban on vehicle imports was maintained, the expenditure from the foreign exchange earnings for petroleum imports would be around $4 billion this year. This amount is close to 1/3 of the total foreign exchange earned from the exports, official sources said.  (BS)