Last month, Sri Lanka doubled licence fees for lubricant operators fixing it at Rs. 10 million (US$ 100,000) for five-years or an annual fee of Rs. 2 million.
Smaller lubricant players are against the decision and are lobbying high level government officials to scrap plans.
After several rounds of negotiations, the government asked us to pay a Rs. 500,000 licence fee from January till March, until we resolve this issue, Trevor Reckerman, Joint Managing Director Exxon Mobil told reporters.
The local lube market, estimated at about Rs. 6 billion (US$ 60 million), is dominated by ChevronTexaco whose local operation is called Caltex Lanka Lubricants Ltd.
The balance is split between Lanka Indian Oil Corp. (LIOC), Exxon Mobil/Esso, Valvoline, Shell, and British Petroleum/Castrol.
Caltex controls around 80 percent, with LIOC about 13 percent, according to industry estimates.
Having bought a part of the then state-owned lubricant sales business, Caltex’s 10-year mon