Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila says that the government decided to suspend the import of crude oil because the country’s foreign exchange should be used sparingly under the prevailing situation. 

“If I had known beforehand that by protesting dollars would come down and we would be able to import crude oil, then I too would have joined that protest because I also want crude oil to be imported and restart the operations of the refinery as soon as possible,” he joked, referring to protests by trade unions yesterday. 

The minister said that at a time when even the powerful nations in the world are currently facing energy crises, not only the trade unions but the entire nation should be happy that the fuel supply ‘miraculously’ remains uninterrupted in Sri Lanka, a country that does not produce oil, does not have dollars to purchase crude oil and does not have tanks to store oil.

Gammanpila added that it is another lie to say that stopping the import of crude oil will lead to power cuts in the country.

Responding to questions regarding people continuing to queue up at fuel stations, the minister said that panic buying by consumers will eventually lead to a temporary shortage of fuel.

“When the entire country goes at the same time and pump full tanks of fuel and then also fill up cannisters it will obviously cause a temporary shortage of fuel,” he said.

The Energy Minister said that this situation was caused due to the media giving publicity to “the lie that a fuel shortage is coming”.