Minister of Energy Udaya Gammanpilla has publicised the full agreement inked between Sri Lanka and India for the joint development of the oil tank farm in Trincomalee. The quadripartite agreement which was signed on the 6th of January, was signed between the Government of Sri Lanka, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), Lanka IOC and the subsidiary company Trinco Petroleum Terminal Pvt. Ltd. as the signatories. The Cabinet of Ministers nodded to the proposal calling for the implementation of Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm development project with India on the 3rd of January, and this will be tabled in Parliament on the 18th of January accordingly. According to the 38-page agreement, 61 tanks at the oil storage complex will be jointly developed by the CPC and Lanka IOC as a joint venture. Lanka IOC is a subsidiary of the Indian Oil Corporation which is under the ownership of India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The subsidiary company, Trinco Petroleum Terminal Pvt. Ltd., was established for the joint development of these 61 oil tanks, and the CPC retained 51% while Lanka IOC held 49% of the issued shares of the joint venture company. Meanwhile, the Lanka IOC-run 14 oil tanks of the Lower Oil Tank Complex will be further leased out to the company for its business activities. Additionally, 24 oil tanks will be allocated for the business activities of the CPC as approved by the Cabinet. Sri Lanka and India reached an agreement to implement a project to jointly develop Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm, after reviewing three existing deals between the countries through diplomatic talks. Both India and Sri Lanka agreed to jointly develop and operate the oil tank farm, which consists of 99 tanks, over three decades ago but the entire farm was leased to India in 2003 for 35 years and Sri Lanka was unsuccessful in taking part of the farm as a sublease from Indian state-controlled IOC’s subsidiary Lanka IOC in 2017.