Lanka-IOC urges govt to revise petroleum prices upwards

The Sri Lanka subsidiary of the Indian Oil Corporation has urged upon the Lankan government to revise petroleum prices upwards in view of the global crude oil prices veering towards 110 dollars a barrel.
"We are losing 750 million Sri Lankan rupees (about 6.94 million dollars) a month due to the high international crude oil prices and look forward to a hike in petroleum prices in the Island country," Lanka Indian Oil Corporation (LIOC) Managing Director K Ramakrishnan told PTI.

The parent company, Indian Oil Corporation, is also worried over surging global oil prices and said it is losing Rs 320 crore (Indian currency) per day on fuel sales in India.

According to top officials of IOC, the oil retail marketing and the borrowings have already touched Rs 34,000 crore as on March 31, 2008.

Meanwhile, the Lankan IOC chief said the situation in 2007 was manageable in the Island country as the government raised petrol prices whenever the global prices surged and thereby saved the company from making high losses.

Ramakrishnan said currently LIOC was losing SLR 31 per litre on diesel which was a worrying factor.

According to the interim results, Lanka IOC has made a net profit of 282 million SLR for the quarter ending December, 2007 whereas it incurred loss of 327 million SLR in the same period during the previous year.

However, the profit was much lower than 677 million SLR, the company earned during three months ending September, 2007. In the nine months ending December 2007, the company made a net profit of 1,450 million SLR. Whereas the company registered a loss of 1,516 million SLR in the year-ago period.

Turnover of LIOC, during the period, is estimated to have risen to 32.3 billion SLR from 23.8 billion SLR during the same period of 2006.

Source: chennaionline