“We plan to revamp the tank farm and upgrade the facility,” he told LBO. “We want to use it to store petroleum products for both domestic sale and export.”

The China Bay tank farm  is the largest tank farm located between the Middle East and Singapore, a company statement said.

The tank farm has a total of 99 tanks, each with a capacity of 12,000 kilolitres.

Suresh Kumar said LIOC was already using 18 tanks in what is known as the lower tank farm having invested to repair and modernise the facilities.

“Lanka IOC has already conducted a survey of the storage tanks by engineering consultants while detailed estimates have also been done based on which further investments are planned,” the statement said.

LIOC now plans to use the remaining 80-odd storage tanks in the upper tank farm area.

“We will revamp the tank farm in a phased manner. In the initial phase a rough estimate of the investment needed is about 35 million US dollars,” Suresh Kumar said. “Every year some tanks will be restored.”

Since taking over operations of the China Bay tank farm  ten years ago in 2002, Lanka IOC has made a total investment of nearly 11.2 million US dollars, he said.

The revamp covered areas such as improving facilities for fuel handling and operations, modernising old storage tanks and building new ones, and strengthening the jetty.

“Lanka IOC invested about 5.62 million dollars since 2002 to improve fuel handling and such operations. Two new storage tanks of 5,500 kilolitres each were constructed along with a new pump house and bowser loading gantry at the lower tank farm area,” he said.

Lanka IOC also built a lube blending plant with a capacity of 18,000 metric tonnes a year at a cost of 5.0 million dollars to manufacture lubricants in Sri Lanka.