82,000 MT bunker terminal at Hambantota port from May

Saturday, 8 January 2011 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka plans to open a $130 million fuel bunkering terminal with a capacity of 82,000 metric tonnes at its new Hambantota port in May, the island nation’s ports authority said on Friday.

Hambantota, which opened in November, is set to be Sri Lanka’s biggest port once completed and give the Indian Ocean country access to traffic on one of the world’s biggest East-West shipping lanes, located a few kilometres off its southern coast.

“We will start bunkering in May,” Priyath Wickrama, chairman of Sri Lanka Ports Authority, told Reuters. “Our target is to reach 4 million tonnes storage, with bulk transhipments.” China Exim Bank has loaned $77 million towards the cost of the terminal, which the ports authority will operate. China has loaned Sri Lanka the bulk of the money to build the $1.5 billion port. The Ports Authority has said China would have no operational role in the bunker terminal, the only part of the port not open to external investment.