Sri Lanka is trying to arrange a payment of $35 million for a shipment of 40,000 tonnes of diesel with just a few days of stocks left, the energy minister said, warning of a looming fuel shortage as foreign exchange runs short. Reserves in Sri Lanka, which typically spends about $450 million each month on fuel imports, dwindled to $2.4 billion by the end of January.
The shipment reached the port of Colombo on Sunday, energy minister Udaya Gammanpila told Reuters, adding that his ministry was in talks with the finance ministry and the central bank to release the funds.
Even with this fuel, we will only have diesel for six days,” energy minister Udaya Gammanpila said. “We are heading for a serious fuel shortage because we do not have adequate foreign exchange to pay for fuel imports.” State-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) has begun to ration distribution in its effort to prepare for the crisis, by issuing just about half of what is typically released to pumping stations, the minister added.
The CPC has racked up liabilities of $3.7 billion, mostly by opening letters of credit with state banks to fund fuel imports for most of last year, said KDR Olga, the secretary of the energy ministry. The ministry has sought a price hike to cover some of the losses, she added. But the government has not yet said when it might approve one. The growing fuel crisis is also hitting power supply, with the power regulator warning of five to six hours of daily load shedding over the next few days unless fuel supplies to thermal power plants increase.
