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Inventory levels of marine fuels are running low at the port of Colombo with the pending handover of the tank farm scheduled to take place on September 10th.

This latest development follows the decision made last month by Sri Lanka's supreme court to grant Lanka Marine Services (LMS) a one month extension until September 10th to vacate the land it currently uses to store marine fuel for its bunkering operations at the port of Colombo.

Lanka Marine had asked the court for a two-month extension having pointed out that it had approximately 755,000 litres of lubricants and Rs. 1.43 billion worth of bunker fuel in storage and needed time to shift remaining stocks in the tanks to barges.

The company reportedly had stock belonging to a number of companies including belonging to Mobil, BP, Castrol, Chevron Texaco, Total Fina Elf, Feoso and Aegean.

With fresh stocks scheduled to arrive in Colombo around September 14th, a shortage of bunker fuel is expected to continue for at least the next nine days, according to local sources.

A large percentage of the marine fuel supplied in Colombo is imported and the country's sole refinery at Sapugaskanda, which is operated by state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, is only able to supply limited amounts.

Meanwhile, other suppliers who have been using tanker barges to store and supply bunker fuel up until now, look set to soon be given the opportunity to use the tank farm for storage after the premises are handed back to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).

The SLPA's outgoing chairman Saliya Wickramasuriya said the port will run the tank farm and make it available for use by all licensed bunker suppliers.

"The Supreme Court judgement clearly indicated the facility is not to be used by any single entity and must be shared by all suppliers," he said.

"We have started the systematic process of handover and hope to have full control by September 10," added Wickramasuriya.