Govt. makes emergency gas purchase of 12,000 MT to meet shortage

The Finance Ministry has made arrangements to make an emergency purchase of 12,000 metric tons of domestic gas in order to meet the prevailing domestic gas shortage in the market.

Accordingly, Litro Gas Company which comes under the purview of the Finance Ministry will import this stock of gas and will take steps to release them to the market with immediate effect.

A shipload of gas carrying 3,600 metric tons docked in the Colombo Port last Saturday (2) and another tanker carrying 3,600 metric tons of gas will arrive in the Port today (5). In addition, another shipload of gas carrying 3,600 metric tons will arrive in the country on Saturday (9) as well.

At the same time, under the emergency purchase, placed under the ordinary procurement procedure, 6,000 metric tons of gas will reach the country within next week.

Accordingly, the gas shortage that was created due to the short supply of gas by a private gas company will end in this week. Therefore the Government requests consumers not to panic over the current short supply of domestic gas. In addition, the Consumer Affairs Authority has raided about 40 gas sales outlets which exploited this gas shortage, hid stocks and sold them at higher prices later. The Consumer Affairs Authority has taken measures to increase the number of such raids in the next few days and legal action will be taken against such unscrupulous domestic gas agents.