The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation booked a net profit of Rs. 29.2 billion in the first six months of 2026 — up 71.8% on the Rs. 17 billion it earned in the same period last year — even as its gross profit collapsed by 72.9%, according to Ministry of Finance figures.
Gross profit for the half fell to Rs. 8.9 billion from Rs. 32.8 billion a year earlier, the Daily Mirror reported. Operating profit nonetheless rose to Rs. 23.9 billion from Rs. 11.1 billion.
The subsidy did the work
The two figures move in opposite directions because the improvement did not come from selling fuel. The Treasury provided a Rs. 41 billion fuel subsidy between April and June 2026, and the Ministry of Finance attributed the stronger result to it directly: “The improvement in operating profitability was mainly attributable to the Treasury subsidy.”
Stripped of that transfer, the underlying trading picture is sharply worse than a year ago. The corporation’s margin on the fuel it bought and sold shrank by nearly three-quarters, and the headline profit rests on a payment from public funds that exceeds the profit itself.
Already contested in Parliament
The numbers were already the subject of a parliamentary challenge before the full half-year breakdown was reported. Batticaloa District ITAK MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam asked the House last week why the CPC was profitable in a period in which it received Rs. 41 billion to hold prices down, whether that relief reached motorists at the pump, and whether the purpose of the state oil monopoly is to earn a profit or to supply affordable fuel.
He also disputed Deputy Minister Kaushalya Ariyarathne’s statement that fuel is sold below import cost. The gross-profit collapse now reported gives that exchange more substance on both sides: the trading margin did shrink severely, but the corporation still finished the half in profit.
For scale, the Central Bank recorded a full-year 2025 profit of Rs. 36.4 billion. Six months of 2026 have produced about four-fifths of that.
Not reported
The filing does not break the half into quarters, so it is not possible to isolate how the April–June subsidy period performed against January–March. It does not say whether further subsidies have been paid since June, what the corporation’s debt position is, or whether the Treasury expects the support to continue into the second half.
