Sri Lanka to reduce fuel price if world oil prices drop: Ravi K

July 17, 2015 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s government will consider a further reduction in the fuel price if oil prices in the world drop, the Finance Minister said. “If the world oil prices drop then we will also reduce the fuel prices in the country but the prices have not dropped yet,” Ravi Karunanayake, Finance Minister told reporter in Colombo, Thursday. We won’t do this as an election bribe, he said.

“See when the gas prices dropped in the world market we reduced the price accordingly,” “The world oil prices have not dropped yet, it will drop only once the Iran crisis is solved.” In the interim budget 2015, the new administration reduced the selling prices of main petroleum products namely petrol, diesel and kerosene to pass through the benefit of the price reduction of the international market to the consumers with effect from mid-January 2015. Meanwhile state statistics office data shows that Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, reported a loss of 5 billion rupees by the end of month of April 2015 despite the oil price reduction of the world market.



The CPC’s total cost of the petroleum products imports during the first four month is around 90 billion rupees which is a 22 percent reduction when compared to petroleum products imports of 115 billion rupees during the same period of the year 2014. During the first two months of the year 2015, CPC recorded a marginal profit supported with the reduction in oil prices in the international market and the cost reflective pricing methodologies applied under the administrative pricing mechanism, the report said.

“However the marginal profit recorded in first two months has been turned around to a loss of 5 billion rupees by the end of month of April 2015.

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