NEWS

Sri Lanka Cabinet clears oil tank deal with India to jointly develop Trincomalee oil tank farms

About Trincomalee oil field

• The facility, built by the British around World War II as a refueling station, has 99 storage tanks that look like giant wells.
• They have a capacity of 12,000 kilolitres each.
• Eighty-four of those are in the 800-acre Upper Tank Farm (UTF). For a good part of a century now, these tanks have remained unused, shrouded in a forest.
• The Lower Tank Farm (LTF) has 16 tanks, spread across 50 acres.

India’s interest

• A talking point in Indo-Lanka relations since 1987.
• Indian Oil Corporation set up Lanka IOC, its Sri Lankan subsidiary in2003
• The agreement remained dormant for years, until the Sirisena- Wickremesinghe administration tried revisiting it through the 2017 MoU.

Significance of Trincomalee

• Home to 3.7 lakh Muslim, Tamil and Sinhala people and Trincomalee, in Sri Lanka’s post-war years.
• Emerged as a favorite destination for surfers from around the world, gradually transforming with plush resorts and restaurants dotting its coast.
• Potential transit point for international trade routes, particularly drawing India which has known strategic interests there.
• Important counterbalance to the southern Hambantota Port backed substantially by China.