{"id":86581,"date":"2019-03-20T15:11:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T22:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=86581"},"modified":"2019-03-20T15:11:04","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T22:11:04","slug":"oman-denies-it-has-agreed-to-invest-in-sri-lanka-oil-refinery-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/03\/20\/oman-denies-it-has-agreed-to-invest-in-sri-lanka-oil-refinery-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Oman denies it has agreed to invest in Sri Lanka oil refinery project"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Reuters<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>NEW DELHI, March 20 (Reuters) &#8211; Oman\u2019s oil ministry on Wednesday denied being part of a $3.85 billion plan to build an oil refinery in Sri Lanka, a day after the government in Colombo announced the Arab country\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lankan officials told a news conference on Tuesday that a joint venture between the Oman oil ministry and a Singapore investment vehicle owned by India\u2019s Accord Group had agreed to build the 200,000 barrel per day refinery near Chinese-controlled Hambantota port on the island\u2019s south coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ministry was to take a 30 percent stake, the officials said, representing what would be Sri Lanka\u2019s biggest single foreign direct investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No one on this side of the panel is aware of this investment in Sri Lanka,\u201d Salim al-Aufi, undersecretary of Oman\u2019s ministry of oil and gas, told a news conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It came as news to me, I don\u2019t know who is signing the cheque for $3.8 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lankan officials could not be reached for immediate comment on the Oman denial. It was a public holiday in Sri Lanka on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Any big deal in Sri Lanka involving Indian investment will pose a challenge to China, which had until recently been on track to be the dominant foreign investor on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>India has become concerned in recent few years about China muscling into Sri Lanka and other countries in a region where India is the traditional power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>China is the biggest buyer of Omani oil, importing about 80 percent of the Middle Eastern nation\u2019s overall crude exports in January, according to an Oman government website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Reuters NEW DELHI, March 20 (Reuters) &#8211; Oman\u2019s oil ministry on Wednesday denied being part of a $3.85 billion plan to build an oil refinery in Sri Lanka, a day after the government in Colombo announced the Arab country\u2019s participation. Sri Lankan officials told a news conference on Tuesday that a joint venture between [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86581","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=86581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}