The country's largest refiner Indian Oil Corporation will pay $75 million for acquiring 100 petrol stations and storage facilities in Sri Lanka.
"We have completed the valuation of 100 petrol stations we took over from Sri Lankan state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation last year, and our valuation of $75 million has been approved by the Sri Lankan government," a senior IOC official told PTI on condition of anonymity.
The $75-million price is also for acquiring fuel storage tanks in the east of the island and licence to sell to bulk consumers.
CPC, which originally held 1,060 petrol stations in the island nation, is selling another 107 outlets, for which the state-run Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd has emerged as the top bidder with a $101 million bid, industry sources said in New Delhi.
East West Corporation, a local Sri Lankan bunkering firm, put in $80 million bid, while India's Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is third in the race with $77 million bid.
Royal Dutch/Shell and India's only private sector refiner Reliance Industries have bid around $55 million each.
Petronas of Malaysia put in about $50 million, while Chinese company Sinopec was at the bottom of the table with a $20 million bid.
Sources said Colombo wants a non-Indian firm to be the third retail player and has asked the local company to match HPCL's bid, failing which the multinationals in the race would be engaged in negotiations.
IOC, which had appointed KPMG as consultant for evaluating the cost of 100 petrol stations, has modernised the outlets and put them in operation earlier this year.
The firm, which had additionally acquired 150 franchise petrol stations to take the total number of outlets to 250, has begun negotiations with CPC for entering into aviation turbine fuel business by setting up an ATF depot at the Colombo airport.
It also plans to enter bulk supply business in Sri Lanka and introduce auto-LPG at select retail outlets, besides exploring marketing of Indane cooking gas among domestic consumers there, the official said.
Lanka IOC, IOC's wholly-owned subsidiary in Sri Lanka, has also taken over the one million tonnes capacity China Bay Tankfarm at Trincomalee on a 35-year lease as part of its plan to develop petroleum product storage facilities there.
The China Bay Tankfarm is of historic and strategic significance, being the largest tankfarm located between the Middle East and Singapore.
The tankfarm connects to the Trincomalee harbour, which is the 5th largest all-weather, non-tidal natural harbour in the world, with a 56-km shoreline, making this tankfarm most effective for fuel receipt, storage and supply.
The tankfarm, formerly owned and operated by CPC, has a total of 99 tanks, each with a capacity of 12,000 kilolitres.
Currently, only 15 of these tanks are operational. LIOC intends to develop the tankage on need basis, as the volume of its downstream marketing operations in Sri Lanka grows, the official said, adding the upgradation plan would involve an investment of Rs 16 crore (Rs 160 million).
IOC also exports 30,000 tonnes of diesel and 10,000 tonnes of aviation turbine fuel a month to Sri Lanka.
