Bunkering venture at Hambantota Port suspended by Ports Authority

The Sri Lanka Ports Authority has suspended its bunkering venture at the Hambantota Port after making a loss of US$ 12 million during the last six months, a top official said. However, the SLPA will offer it out to any interested party that can run the operation better, said Lakdas Panagoda, SLPA chairman. A tank farm was built on a loan of US$ 100 million to facilitate the project. The operation was started last year and temporarily made a profit. But sliding global prices left the SLPA with vast stocks of oil that had been bought at higher prices. “At the moment we have 15,000 tonnes of marine gas oil as well as some contaminated stuff we need to get rid of,” Dr Panagoda said. “Anyway, prices have gone down since the oil was bought and we felt that we were continuing to make losses.” “We also decided that the SLPA is not in the bunkering business,” he continued. “We are in the business of ports. We have requested Cabinet permission to either give out the facility on lease, to get into a joint venture arrangement or a common user agreement.” “We have had inquiries and we are confident we can get a good party or a common user arrangement,” he said. “We will not buy any more fuel and we will very soon call for expressions of interest to give out operations.”