Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2020-11-02

Establishment of a New Refinery of 100,000 barrels per day (bblspd) at Sapugaskanda for the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation

- As the existing capacity of the refinery located at Sapugaskanda belonging to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation is only 40,000 (bblspd), the Corporation refinery meets only 25 % of the local demand for refined petroleum products. The remaining 75% has to be imported, relying much on the foreign exchange. Although a feasibility study had been conducted in 2010 for the renovation and expansion of the refinery to increase that capacity up to 100,000 (bblspd), the subsequent technological changes that have taken place in that field have made it impossible to proceed on the results of the feasibility study.

Accordingly the proposal made by the Minister of Energy to take necessary action to initiate a new feasibility study by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to determine the scope, technical, operational and financial feasibility of the project which is to be implemented with a focus on several alternative proposals to enhance the existing refinery capacity of petroleum products, was approved by the Cabinet.