{"id":66520,"date":"2017-05-30T22:14:28","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T04:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=66520"},"modified":"2017-05-30T14:58:32","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T21:58:32","slug":"trinco-oil-tank-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/05\/30\/trinco-oil-tank-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"TRINCO OIL TANK FARM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Capt Ranjith Weerasinghe<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Trincomalee Tank farm with 100 tanks in 850 acres of land need not be given to any country or any foreign company. Whatever the agreement with LIOC, all the tanks must be taken back to the government possession immediately as the COPE finds that there is no legal agreement signed to lease it out to them. The US$ 100,000 p.a or $8333.33 per month lease for all tanks in 850 acres is peanuts as we have individual professionals earning even more than that kind of monthly salary.<\/p>\n

Developing 100 tanks and clearing the 850 Acres of land and pipe line and the Oil Jetty in Trinco harbour should be done by Sri Lanka government and owned by it and not even by Petroleum Corporation. So that Tanks are only hired out on a daily rate Per CBM per day\u201d; for storage for anyone who wants to hire them for Crude Oil, Heavy Fuel Oil, Intermediate Fuel Oil, Refined products such as Diesel, Petrol, Kerosine, Aviation Fuel Etc, using dedicated tanks and separate pipelines to the jetty. It shall cost an affordable amount to Sri Lanka Government needing no loan involvements to clear our own backyard of 850 Acres. Management of that operation shall be done by the government owned or delegated company with corporate efficiency. They also can canvass for business to attract foreign companies to use the tanks for short term and long term storage of petroleum oil only on the basis of \u00a0\u2018per cbm per day rate\u2019 so that there is no question of long term leasing it out to anybody.<\/p>\n

I reiterate that there is no need to get into another trap like Hambantota when the Trinco harbour, tanks and Land are already ours without a cent of debt to any one like in Hambantota. Why invite another country like India to jointly develop it. So we must make full use of our own asset for the country’s benefit. Hope the government has learnt the lesson hard way from Hambantota Port and Port City with the Chinese debts for next 400 years<\/p>\n

I challenge any expert in the industry or the government including the Prime Minister to irrefutably justify why Trinco Tanks should be jointly developed with India or any other country.<\/p>\n

What is the valid reason for Joint Venture ?<\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t the Government have money to develop the tank farm ?<\/p>\n

Cant the Govt. do a joint venture with Sri Lankan companies; why Indians ?<\/p>\n

Does it cost an unaffordable amount to develop the tank farm ?<\/p>\n

Do we intend buying and selling oil or look for offering the tanks for storage only ?<\/p>\n

What is Lanka IOC doing with 99 tanks when there is no valid agreement with them to lease ?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. To upgrade the tanks and clear the land as a clean tank farm, it does not cost a lot; (not as much as many Prados to Ministers) Costs are within the reach of government alone.<\/li>\n
  2. if the government cannot afford even that kind of investment, there are enough local companies who can do that and run the tank farm so that there is no need to give it to foreign countries.<\/li>\n
  3. When there is no debt at all and the tanks are already there and owned by the country, why do we want to give it out to any other country to develop just like the debt-trapped Hambantota, specially to India which has other interests in holding onto land. Get the LIOC out of the hold on to the tanks first.<\/li>\n
  4. Having an ambiguous MOU to agree to lease out the tanks to LIOC without a proper lease agreement signed at all, it is best to clear it out immediately and have the possession of the all 102 tanks, the pipeline & oil jetty and land vested clearly in the Government so that it can be hired on spot basis to anyone including CPC and LIOC only on Tankage hire on daily rate per ton.<\/li>\n
  5. It is a business that can be developed to attract other oil traders in the region without having to give out on lease agreements. There are viable alternatives either as a sole government project or local private public partnership project There is ready business available and can be further developed hiring of tanks on per MT per day\u201d basis and can earn 100 times more than what current lease does<\/li>\n
  6. In the event of setting up a refinery in the country, storage facility is definitely needed for both crude oil as well as finish product. So let the tanks be our own assets<\/li>\n
  7. Even if we don\u2019t have any business for these tanks, let them be as they are; why do you want to give it to another country purely on the so called geo-political reasons the pundits in governments unduly infer or fear; (if giving it to a foreign country is the way to go, Govt can give that also to China; so that the so called geopolitical reasons will vanish immediately;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Capt Ranjith Weerasinghe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Capt Ranjith Weerasinghe \u00a0Trincomalee Tank farm with 100 tanks in 850 acres of land need not be given to any country or any foreign company. Whatever the agreement with LIOC, all the tanks must be taken back to the government possession immediately as the COPE finds that there is no legal agreement signed to lease […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-politics","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66520","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=66520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}