Sri Lanka opens oil market to foreign firms

Sri Lanka announced it was opening its oil market to foreign competition, a day after chronic fuel shortages forced a nationwide halt to petrol and diesel sales, AFP reported.

Ministers said the fuel crisis had made it an appropriate time to allow market entry from firms in oil-producing nations “to enable them to import and sell fuel using their funds”, a cabinet statement said.

Sri Lanka’s oil industry was nationalized in 1961, though a third of the market was granted to a local unit of India’s state-owned oil and gas company in 2003.

Despite the sales ban, long queues of vehicles were seen outside pumping stations with motorists hoping to top up whenever supplies resumed.

The government has dispatched ministers to Russia and Qatar to source discounted oil, while President Gotabaya Rajapaksa this week met with Moscow’s envoy in Sri Lanka to discuss fuel and other imports.

A US delegation is also in Colombo to assess the country’s needs after the United Nations issued a flash appeal to some 1.7 million urgently in need of food support.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a $20 million grant to feed around 800,000 children while at the G7 Summit in Germany.