Payments made, shipments cleared: CPCLimited foreign reserves a problem: MinisterBy Yumiko PereraA vessel carrying crude oil to Sri Lanka had been anchored in the Port of Colombo for several days due to a delay in making the required payment, The Sunday Morning learnt. The confirmation of the payment for the fuel tanker which arrived in Sri Lanka on 5 July had only been cleared on 9 July – a four-day delay – according to highly placed internal sources at Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC). Speaking with The Sunday Morning, CPC Chairman Sumith Wijesinghe said the payment has been cleared, and as per the birthing schedule, things would commence as per usual. We have a birthing schedule and as per the schedule, the usual mechanism would commence in extracting the oil from the tankers,” he noted. “If this was an issue of rupees, we could have subsidised it or used alternative means, but it is an issue of foreign currency.”

Source: The Nation July 10, 2021 17:15 UTC