Lanka IOC, Sinopec and RM Park have all raised the price of a litre of Octane 95 petrol by Rs 20, taking it from Rs 475 to Rs 495 with effect from midnight on Sunday night. All three private distributors now sell the grade at the same price.

The Lanka IOC increase was reported by Hiru News at 11.01 p.m. on 25 October, giving motorists about an hour’s notice before the new price took effect going into Monday. The Daily Mirror reported on Monday morning that Sinopec had moved by the same Rs 20 to the same Rs 495, confirming the revision was not confined to one distributor.

Who announced it

Hiru attributed the Lanka IOC announcement to the LIOC Distributors’ Association — the dealers’ body — rather than to Lanka IOC itself, and quoted no company statement.

That distinction mattered when only one company had moved, because every recent Lanka IOC revision this desk has recorded was framed as the company moving in line with the state Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. When prices were revised on 30 September, Managing Director K. Ragu said LIOC was following the CPC: Octane 92 rose Rs 15 and White Diesel Rs 10, while Octane 95 and kerosene were left unchanged.

With all three private distributors now at Rs 495, the move reads as a market-wide revision of the grade rather than a single dealer’s decision.

A third distributor: RM Park

Hiru News reported on Monday morning that RM Park had also raised Octane 95 by Rs 20, in the same filing that carried the Sinopec increase, timed at 8.33 a.m. The Daily Mirror’s account named only Lanka IOC and Sinopec, so the third company appears in one filing and not the other.

That matters for how the revision should be read. Two companies moving by the same amount on the same night could be one following the other; all three private retailers in the market moving together is a sector-wide repricing of the grade. It also means that every non-state seller of Octane 95 is now Rs 20 dearer, leaving motorists no cheaper private alternative.

Hiru gives the same Rs 475 starting point and Rs 495 result for both companies, matching the Daily Mirror. One difference in wording is worth noting: Hiru frames the new price in the future tense — the price will rise to Rs 495 — while the Daily Mirror reports the increase as already in effect. Both place the Lanka IOC change at midnight on Sunday.

The arithmetic checks out

Octane 95 — sold by Lanka IOC as Octane 95 Euro 4 — has stood at Rs 475 since that revision, a figure confirmed by NewsFirst’s account of the 30 September changes. The same Rs 475 retail price appears in the comparison table former minister Patali Champika Ranawaka used in early October when he demanded the government publish its fuel pricing formula, setting retail prices against Singapore FOB prices.

Rs 475 plus the Rs 20 increase gives exactly the Rs 495 both outlets report. The Daily Mirror states the Rs 475 starting point and the Rs 495 result explicitly, independently confirming the baseline this desk had established from the September revision.

Rs 495 is not a new price point for this grade in print. A Rs 495 Petrol 95 figure appeared in reporting on 1 October and was assessed by this desk as an error at the time, with Rs 475 established as the correct price. That assessment stands for 1 October; the grade has only now actually reached Rs 495.

Not reported

Neither filing gives a reason for the increase, and neither says whether any other grade moved.

No CPC revision has been reported alongside this one. If the state corporation holds Octane 95 at Rs 475, all three private distributors will be selling the same grade Rs 20 above the state price — a break from the pattern in which LIOC has tracked the CPC. No statement from the Ministry of Energy or from the CPC has been reported.

Neither filing gives a reason for the increase: no world market movement, exchange-rate change or tax adjustment is cited by either outlet, and no company statement is quoted by either.

Sourcing note

This report has been updated twice. It was first published as a single-source story on the Lanka IOC increase alone, and closed by noting that no filing said whether the CPC or Sinopec would follow. The Sinopec half of that question is now answered by the Daily Mirror’s 7.22 a.m. filing on 26 October: Sinopec matched the increase at the same price. The scanner that queued the Daily Mirror item recorded Sinopec’s price as Rs 498; the figure does not appear in the Daily Mirror’s report, which puts both distributors at Rs 495, and Rs 495 is the figure used here.

The second update adds RM Park, from Hiru’s 8.33 a.m. filing on 26 October, taking the count of private distributors that have moved from two to three and changing the headline from a two-company increase to a market-wide one. The CPC’s position remains unreported.