Sri Lanka has agreed to sign a fresh deal with India to lease out the strategic World War II era oil tank farm for 50 years in the eastern port district of Trincomalee, Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila said on Friday. Gammanpila said the deal will be signed next week after the Cabinet approval and is an extension of the 2002 agreement with the local operators of the Indian Oil Company, LIOC.
Sri Lanka in 2002 entered the original deal with India on the island’s most strategic oil storage complex, which was used as a supply base during World War II.
India at all times had shown a strategic interest in the Trincomalee tank farm which the British rulers had built to refuel Allied warships and aircraft.
