Sri Lanka to Present New Natural Gas Policy

The Sri Lankan government will soon present a new petroleum law and natural gas policy to entice new investors, reported economynext, a local news service provider.

“The Petroleum Resources Development Act is almost ready and is to be tabled soon in parliament,” Minister of Petroleum Resources Development Chandima Weerakkody said. “We have also come to the final stage of our national policy on natural gas.”

The minister said that the new law will give investors confidence about the protection of their investment.

The government was now gathering more data on off shore petroleum blocks before going on a road show to promote the island ahead of the next bid round, economynext quoted Weerakkody as saying. “Before we go for a bid round we have to have data. Hopefully before the year-end we’ll have a road show and then the next bid round.”

With environment in mind, Sri Lanka is looking to promote greater use of natural gas. The government wants to move away from coal based power plants to LNG based ones. For the south Asian island nation sharp fall in LNG prices in last one year has made it attractive to pursue gas based power generation.

Recently, Colombo said it wants to source LNG from Qatar, world’s biggest exporter of the super chilled fuel.