Sri Lanka’s southern Hambantota Port to benefit by proposed oil refinery
Sri Lankan authorities expect the proposed oil refinery in the country’s Southern Province could boost operations in the Southern Hambantota Port.
The US$ 3.9 billion refinery project will be located near the Hambantota Port, which was built with funding from Beijing and eventually handed over on a 99-year lease to a state-owned Chinese company in a debt-to-equity swap.
“It (the oil refinery) will help make the Hambantota port an active port,” Nalin Bandara, Sri Lanka’s Deputy Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade has said at a news conference in Colombo recently. “The oil tankers will find it easy to reach the refinery through the Hambantota port.”
The proposed oil refinery will be built on 585 acres of land and amounts to Sri Lanka’s largest foreign direct investment project, according to Mangala Yapa, a technical adviser with the Ministry of Development Strategies and International Trade.
The refinery is a joint-venture between Singapore-based Silverpark International and the Sultanate of Oman, he has said.
“What we are trying to do through this is to generate port harbor volumes,” Yapa has added.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port is engaged in a development programme and the proposed oil refinery would be definite boost for operations of the port. The port already has an industrial zone in the premises, which provides an ideal business space for companies engaged in exports and logistics. Foreign businesses/investors could explore business/investment opportunities in the Hambantota industrial zone. The Sri Lankan government is already engaged in a programme to liberalize the maritime sector in the country in order to achieve hub status in the Indian Ocean region. Therefore, investment opportunities in the country’s maritime sector are also on the rise.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/25032019/Z_8 |