| Published on Monday, 26 March 2012 13:34 Hits: 137
Minister of Petroleum Industry Susil Premjayantha has said that the United States has given a waiver to Sri Lanka on Washington’s unilateral sanctions against the Iranian oil sector, allowing Sri Lanka to continue importing oil from Iran.
He has said that the US had earlier urged Colombo for a total cut of Iranian oil import, it has now agreed to a waiver which allows Sri Lanka to only scale down crude imports from Iran by 15 percent. He said that with such a reduction Sri Lanka will not face a total ban on Iran oil imports immediately.
The Minister has said that the waiver to reduce crude oil imports only by 15 percent was a result of the request made by the Sri Lankan government to the US earlier this month.
The Minister has also said that Sri Lanka is looking for other sources for its crude oil supplies and talks underway with Saudi Arabia and Oman.
Sri Lanka imports as much as 93 percent of its annual crude oil requirements from Iran.(niz)
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