Following speculation that more than 650 employees at the Sapugaskanda Refinery, the country’s sole oil refinery, will face potential job losses due to its transformation into a separate public enterprise, the Ministry of Power and Energy stated that while the number of employees in the Refinery should be revised, no employee will lose their job as claimed by certain parties.

Several media outlets, quoting sources within the Government, reported that it plans to retain only approximately 200 of the current employees for the new enterprise.  Accordingly, the remaining workers will be placed in a pool from which the new enterprise will select the necessary personnel to maintain operations.

Against this backdrop, the Secretary to the Ministry, Dr. Sulakshana Jayawardena, told The Daily Morning that while the number of employees in both the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and the Ceylon Electricity Board would be revising as part of the restructuring programme, no employee would lose their job since the Government is very concerned about the employees. He also noted that the decision to reduce the number of employees was taken after studying the number of employees in other institutions that provide the same service. He added that the Government will be following certain methods and programmes when revising the number of employees to prevent any possible inconvenience to the employees. 

Dr. Jayawardena also noted that media reports that claim that the Government is going to remove more than 600 employees from the refinery as part of the restructuring programme are baseless.

In March, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a proposal to operate the Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery as a State owned business entity disjointed from the CPC. The Government had said that it had identified the need to make a ‘critical investment’ to upgrade the oil Refinery in order to keep it up and running for another 25 years. Thereby, it has been decided to call for expressions of interest to select a suitable strategic investment partner to upgrade the infrastructure facilities to address the existing operational challenges. 

The Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera said that the Government is also exploring the option of relocating the Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery to Trincomalee in the future with upgraded modern facilities and the development of the tank farm. 

The existing facility, which is the only oil refinery in Sri Lanka, was established in 1969 and fulfills approximately 25% of the country’s demand for refined petroleum products.