The Sapugaskanda oil refinery will be closed again from tomorrow (20) due to a shortage of crude oil, trade unions sources said.
Convener of the Samagi Trade Union Confederation Ananda Palitha stated that the refining work will be stopped for the third time after midnight today.
He told the media that nowhere else in the world have oil refineries been shut down due to the effects of the Covid epidemic, but in Sri Lanka.
He said the value of an oil refinery was high in the face of a foreign exchange crisis, adding that it would be foolish for the government to shut down refineries as the counytry has to pay more dollars to purchase finished products to meet the country’s demand.
Palitha also said that the refinery’s failure to operate at full capacity had led to power outages in the recent past. He said the shutdown, saying the refinery would meet most of the country’s fuel demand, would lead to long-term power cuts.
Ananda Palitha, meanwhile, told the government not to create the impression that there was a shortage of crude oil due to the Ukraine-Russia crisis. He points out that the refinery uses marban, Iranian or Arabic crude oil but does not use Russian crude oil. However, he says that the government used the conflict in Russia as a reason to suspend the Sapugaskanda operation.
He said the government had failed to take any action despite complaints from unions that corruption and inefficiency on the part of government MPs and their secretaries had led to the suspension of the operation.
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