Lanka IOC today increased the price of diesel by 20 rupees (19 US cents) to 100 rupees a litre, said Managing Director K Ramakrishnan in a telephone interview. The Colombo-based company held the price of petrol.
Crude oil rose to a record above $135 a barrel in New York on concern that supplies are inadequate after US stockpiles unexpectedly dropped last week.
Sri Lankan oil companies have been free to set prices since June 2006, although Lanka IOC sells fuel below cost because larger state rival Ceylon Petroleum Corp caps prices to help the government control inflation.
Lanka IOC, which runs a third of the island's gas stations, expects to report a profit in the quarter ended March 31 after hedging oil imports and increasing reserves, Ramakrishnan said last month.
"We might be able to minimize the loss in the April-June quarter and we expect the government to also make revisions to prices,'' Ramakrishnan said today. "If we waited for the government, we would have come to a grinding halt."
