By P. Karunakharan
Colombo, June 26 (IANS) The Lanka Indian Oil Corporation (LIOC) Thursday heeded the government’s request and further reduced the price of diesel by 10 Sri Lankan rupees to bring it on par with that of state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC). “The Lanka IOC reduced diesel price by 10 rupees per litre and matches CPC price of 110 rupees per litre with effect from 00:00 hours of Friday,” Lanka IOC managing director K. Ramakrishnan said Thursday, adding that the price of LIOC petrol would continue to match that of CPC at Rs.157 per litre.

This is the second price reduction by the LIOC within 48 hours, a week after Petroleum Minister A.H.M. Fowzie warned of takeover of all 153 LIOC outlets if the company did not bring its diesel price on par with CPC.

On Tuesday, LIOC reduced the diesel price by Rs.10 per litre.

LIOC had earlier increased the diesel price by Rs.20 a litre, saying it was forced to do so after the government imposed a fresh levy of Rs.24.50 cents per litre on imported petroleum products on May 26.

Ramakrishnan said the LIOC was selling all its products at prices on par with the CPC and compensating the losses on account of diesel with the profit from petrol.

The minister argued that due to the price difference, the LIOC’s consumers too had shifted to CPC, making its losses unbearable.

Ramakrishnan, however, said that LIOC has already appealed to the Sri Lankan government to remove the fresh import duty and expressed hope this would be considered positively.

“We have made the request to do away with the latest levy and we are hopeful that the government of Sri Lanka will bail us out from suffering losses,” the LIOC managing director said.

LIOC, which has 153 retail outlets throughout Sri Lanka, holds 19 percent of the market share in fuel products. On an average, LIOC sells 15 million litres of petrol and 30 million litres of diesel in Sri Lanka while the CPC sells 45 million litres of petrol and 170 million litres of diesel per month.