UAE firm to build refinery in Sri Lanka

Star Petro Energy LLC, based in the United Arab Emirates, will build Sri Lanka’s second refinery in Hambantota in the south. The US$1.5 billion project is expected to become operational in about two years. Details on the refinery’s output were not disclosed. All of the country’s crude oil imports are currently refined at the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corp.’s Sapugaskanda refinery, near Colombo, with a production capacity of 60,000 barrels per day. (July 14, 2006)