{"id":125775,"date":"2022-05-29T10:05:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-29T17:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=125775"},"modified":"2022-05-29T15:50:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-29T22:50:28","slug":"sri-lanka-to-pay-65-per-barrel-for-russian-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/05\/29\/sri-lanka-to-pay-65-per-barrel-for-russian-oil\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka to pay $34 per barrel(US) for Russian oil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sri Lanka News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Sri Lanka will pay $US72.6 million to buy a 90,000-tonne shipment of Russian oil docked at Colombo\u2019s port for weeks, its energy minister says, as the island nation works to restart its only refinery and address a crippling energy crisis. That means Sri Lanka pays only $34 per barrel(US) when the market price is around $110 per barrel (based on 1 ton reg =23.75 barrels(US)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka has struggled to pay for fuel, food and medicine imports due to a severe shortage of foreign currency. An unprecedented financial crisis has also forced the country to default on some external debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the rest of Asia, Sri Lanka wants to shift to long-term crude tenders to hedge against high crude spot prices, but dwindling foreign exchange reserves have hampered its ambitions, the power minister said on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have reached out to multiple countries, including Russia, for support to import crude and other petroleum products,\u201d Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 90,000-tonne consignment was ordered through Dubai-based Coral Energy, Wijesekera said, adding that the payment would facilitate restarting the country\u2019s sole refinery, which has been closed since March 25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next shipment will also be ordered from the same company. Another consignment will be needed within the next two weeks to keep the refinery running continuously,\u201d Wijesekera said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queues of two-wheelers and cars outside fuel stations, sometimes miles long, have become a familiar sight for Sri Lankans this year, with high global oil prices exacerbating their misery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wijesekera estimates that Sri Lanka will need $US568 million to pay for a dozen fuel shipments needed in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country is struggling to pay $US31 million for a furnace oil shipment docked at Colombo\u2019s port. State-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) needs $US735 million to clear letters of credit for previous oil purchases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total foreign reserves were $US1.82 billion at the end of April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protests have rocked Sri Lanka in recent days, with demonstrators demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over the financial crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sri Lanka News Sri Lanka will pay $US72.6 million to buy a 90,000-tonne shipment of Russian oil docked at Colombo\u2019s port for weeks, its energy minister says, as the island nation works to restart its only refinery and address a crippling energy crisis. That means Sri Lanka pays only $34 per barrel(US) when the market price […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}