Fuel prices will remain unchanged through August, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) said on Friday (31), leaving July’s pump prices in place for another month.
CPC Chairman D.J. Rajakaruna announced the decision at a press conference in Colombo. The existing price structure will continue to apply for the whole of August, he said.
Prices remain as follows:
- Auto Diesel — Rs. 382
- Super Diesel — Rs. 478
- Petrol 92 Octane — Rs. 414
- Petrol 95 Octane — Rs. 495
- Kerosene — Rs. 285
No cut, despite the signal
The announcement follows a CPC statement two days earlier in which the corporation said the benefit of falling global crude and refined fuel prices would be passed on to consumers at this revision. The corporation did not then specify which grades would be reduced or by how much, and no reduction has materialised.
In that July 29 statement, CPC put Brent crude at US$ 86.66 a barrel and US crude at US$ 81.73 a barrel, and said global fuel prices had fluctuated over the preceding weeks. The corporation set out its reasons for withholding the indicated relief in a fuller account of the briefing published later (see update below).
Sri Lanka revises fuel prices at the end of each month under a formula that weighs global oil prices, the exchange rate and import costs. A decision to hold prices is itself the outcome of that monthly cycle rather than a deferral of it.
Pump prices have been a persistent political pressure point. Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa has repeatedly called for reductions when world oil prices fell, arguing that consumers were not seeing the benefit. Fuel also remains a significant drain on the external accounts, with the monthly import bill running into hundreds of millions of dollars this year.
Ada Derana rendered the chairman’s name as J. D. Rajakaruna; the Daily Mirror gave it as D.J. Rajakaruna, and EconomyNext as Shantha Rajakaruna.
Update (August 1): A fuller account of the same briefing, reported by EconomyNext, sets out why no reduction was passed on and confirms that the state is carrying a loss on diesel to hold the price.
CPC Chairman Rajakaruna said global market diesel prices are up 158.9 percent on pre-war levels while local prices have risen 135.9 percent, leaving the corporation absorbing the difference. “We are facing a loss of about 63 to 70 rupees per litre on diesel. However, the state petroleum corporation is absorbing this burden so that diesel prices are not increased,” he said, describing diesel as the primary fuel powering the economy and saying the government chose to shield consumers from the full global price shock.
Petrol has tracked world markets more closely, rising 141 percent against February levels. Rajakaruna said petrol costs dipped earlier in the month before renewed conflict pushed them back up and then stabilised.
He attributed the volatility to the Russia-Ukraine war — where drone strikes on Russian refineries cut domestic supply by 14 percent, forcing re-imports from India and elsewhere — and to Red Sea tensions driving up shipping freight and insurance rates. “Because of the escalation of this war, the opportunity to provide a price reduction to the public is no longer available,” he said.
On the outlook, the chairman said the crude price falls seen in June typically take about two months to feed through to local pricing because of inventory lags, leaving room for relief in the coming months if global conditions allow.
