Sri Lankan workers protest Oil farm lease to IOC

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 February 2003, 17:18 GMT]
More than two hundred workers, mostly Sinhalese, who are employees of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) in Trincomalee Saturday struck work demanding that the oil storage facility at Chinabay oil tank farm should not be handed over to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), sources said.

Workers demanded that the Chinabay oil storage facility should remain in the hands of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation as at present, an official of the CPC said.

Workers fear that they will lose their jobs once the IOC takes over the oil storage facility at Chinabay, sources said.

The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) recently signed an agreement with the Sri Lanka authorities to lease out several oil tanks now lying in the Chinabay oil farm, 10 km west of Trincomalee town. The United Kingdom constructed 101 oil tanks in Chinabay area and during the Second World War to supply oil to its eastern naval fleet anchored at the Trincomalee harbour from this oil storage facility, sources said.

The Indian Oil Corporation is fully owned by the Indian Government and enjoys monopoly in the Indian oil market.

Indian OIC officials took charge of about twenty oil tanks under the agreement the IOC signed with its counterpart in Sri Lanka. CPC workers at Chinabay plant Friday walked out of their office when Indian officials visited Chinabay oil storage facility Friday.

Saturday more than two hundred workers struck work, sources said.

IOC is India’s leading oil refining and marketing company and processes crude oil to produce petroleum products such as petrol, diesel, LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas), kerosene, naptha etc. The company holds over 53% of the petroleum products market in India with sales of 47.8 million tonnes in FY01. It owns more than 82.5% of the total pipeline capacity, which will play an important role post deregulation, according to information on an Indian Oil Research website.

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