Power Crisis: Crucial meeting on Fuel delivery to CEB

COLOMBO (News 1st): The Ministry of Power will hold a discussion on Tuesday (Jan. 18) with the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, on obtaining the required US dollars for the Ceylon Electricity Board.  "A fuel tanker is currently at the Port and the discussions with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the Finance Ministry, and the Bank of Ceylon today (18), will focus on getting the tanker released to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation," Minister of Power Gamini Lokuge told News 1st. Accordingly, once the shipment of fuel onboard the tanker is released to the CPC, the CEB could also obtain the required fuel for power generation, he added. "The Central Bank provided US dollars for all these shipments, and for this shipment also, we'll obtain the required dollars from the CBSL," Minister Lokuge noted. The Minister was hopeful that the prevailing power crisis could be rectified by the 22nd of this month, once the fault at the Norochcholai Power Plant is resolved and re-activated, as that would add another 300 MW of power to the National Grid.