The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) is charging a profit margin of Rs.100 to Rs.120 per litre on petrol and diesel while denying the country’s three private fuel distributors a level playing field, former Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka has alleged.
Ranawaka, now leader of the United Republican Front (URF), made the claim in a social media post, Daily Mirror reported.
The arithmetic he sets out
As of 30 October 2026, Ranawaka said, import costs stood at:
- US$162 a barrel for diesel
- US$138 a barrel for 92-octane petrol
- US$114 a barrel for Brent crude
On those prices, he argued, the cost per litre should be Rs.336 for diesel and Rs.280 for petrol if the products are imported already refined.
If instead the same fuels are produced by refining crude oil at the CPC’s own refinery, the corresponding cost should be Rs.236 a litre for both products, he said — a gap of Rs.44 to Rs.100 a litre against the refined-import route, depending on the fuel.
His charge is that the CPC sells refinery output at prices built on the higher imported-product benchmark, and books the difference as profit.
The competition question
The second half of the allegation concerns the three private distributors — Lanka IOC, Sinopec and RM Parks — which operate alongside the state corporation. Ranawaka’s argument is that a state refiner able to price its own output above its production cost, while private operators must buy refined product on the open market, is not a level playing field.
That tension is not new. In September the government said it was examining legal options to let private distributors set their own prices within an upper and lower band, after the three operators cut diesel distribution by roughly half, citing losses. Separately, the government has moved a supplementary estimate of Rs.47 billion that includes a diesel subsidy.
Context and caution
This is a renewed claim rather than a new one. Ranawaka made a closely related argument in June, when he called for fuel price reductions, and Daily Mirror has previously carried a filing headlined “Patali claims current fuel import costs do not justify retail prices”. Reports in a similar vein have appeared repeatedly through 2026, so the specific discriminators for this instalment are the 30 October 2026 import costs and the Rs.100-120 per litre margin figure.
The CPC has separately been reported as making a profit on petrol while losing money on diesel and kerosene — a breakdown that is not addressed in Ranawaka’s single-margin framing.
Not reported
The filing carries no response from the CPC, the Ministry of Power and Energy or the three private distributors. It does not state the current pump prices Ranawaka is comparing his figures against, give the exchange rate or refinery yield assumptions behind the Rs.236 figure, or explain how a crude price of US$114 a barrel produces finished products costing US$138 and US$162. These are Ranawaka’s assertions as reported, not independently verified calculations.
No other verified newsroom had carried the claim at the time of writing.