Languishing since 1987, the Trinco Energy Hub will be connected with multi-purpose pipelines and power grids between Sri Lanka and India.

Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd)

The Gulf War has at least had one positive effect — the creation of larger strategic oil reserves. One of the most significant measures is the Trincomalee (Trinco) Oil Tank Farms project in Sri Lanka. Languishing since 1987, the development of the Trinco Energy Hub is now on the anvil, to be connected with multi-purpose pipelines and power grids between the two countries. In a smart diplomatic move, New Delhi sent Vice-President CP Radhakrishnan, who also happens to be Tamilian, to Sri Lanka recently, in what was the first bilateral visit by any Vice President to Sri Lanka, raising the protocol from the customary contact of Foreign Minister Jaishankar who last visited Colombo in December 2025.

The Radhakrishnan call was significant for three reasons: it focused on transforming Trinco as an energy hub; it helped revive the “Tamil question”; and it embedded India’s strategic stature as first responder in India’s neighbourhood. Like the landslide political victory of the Rashtriya Swatantra Party in Nepal, Sri Lanka’s left-wing National People’s Power party stormed into power in 2024 decimating traditional parties, including the once-strong Tamil bloc.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake a former Marxist from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party, which in the 1980s had opposed the 1987 India-Sri Lanka Accord, has recognised Delhi’s preeminence in the region and highlighted its Neighbourhood First policy by recounting India’s crucial interventions: the economic crisis in 2022; the financial lifeline that followed the crisis of debt; and relief during cyclone Ditwah. Radhakrishnan said India will stand with Sri Lanka’s “ successes and struggles like an affectionate elder brother”, a term that rebounded in Nepal. In its election manifesto NPP had said : Trinco oil tank farms will be renovated with support of a friendly foreign country.

Last month, with Radhakrishnan and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri flanking him, Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath called the Trinco project a permanent solution to the developing energy crisis in the Indian subcontinent, whilst referring to the ongoing war in the Persian Gulf. Misri, earlier Deputy High Commissioner in Colombo, briefed the media in Colombo on several bilateral matters, including the Trinco Energy Hub.

It will be instructive to recall the strategic importance of Trinco Harbour and Port as penned by former Sri Lankan Admiral Ravi Wijegunaratne, who noted that the Dutch, French and British colonial powers contested Trincomalee because it was the gateway to the Bay of Bengal. British admiral Lord Nelson described Trinco as “the finest and deepest harbour in the world”. In 1935, the British built 100 oil tanks with impregnable Manchester steel, with the capacity to hold 1 mn tonnes of petroleum, long enough for six months of strategic petroleum reserve.

For Sri Lanka, Trincomalee is a ‘national asset’. In the past, several trade unions and political parties have protested energy cooperation with India, seeing it as a ceding of sovereignty. That’s why, despite several agreements and MoUs, none could fructify. The three decade-long Tamil Eelam war didnt help.

In 2003, Indian Oil Corporation signed a 35-year lease to develop 15 oil tanks, with an annual payment of $ 100,000. Sri Lanka Oil Corporation utilises 16 tanks for fuel storage, offshore bunkering and has rented three to Prima Flour Mill Singapore for water storage. Radhakrishnan discussed the renovation of oil tanks and laying of a multi purpose oil transfer pipeline between Karaikal/Chennai to Trincomalee. A solar power project is also under construction in Sampore in Trinco. The iron is hot for the Trinco Energy hub to be finally executed.

The Tamil question over the years has been relegated to ‘Tamil aspirations’; this is true even for those in the political doldrums especially after the political mauling of the fractured Tamil parties in the Northern Province, considered a Tamil stronghold for decades. NPP won three of nine seats in Jaffna districts, topping the vote share for the first time; remarkably, a non-Tamil national alliance had won seats in Jaffna. The Tamil National Alliance, which at one time had 16 seats, is today reduced to 12 seats. (Back In 1977, Tamil United Liberation Front was the main opposition party with 18 seats.) Provincial elections have not been held for seven years but there is no indication they will be held anytime soon. While Dissanayake has been telling Tamils that the new Constitution will address the “Tamil question”, Radhakrishnan informed Tamil leaders that he had discussed the issue with his Sri Lankan interlocutors.

Certainly, the Tamils have genuine reasons to be upset with Sinhala majority rulers, whether they belong to the Left or the Right. The Tamils point out that the spirit of the India Sri Lanka accord, which was a treaty between two countries — which guaranteed under a proposed 13th Amendment equality between Tamil and Sinhala, opening the door to a federal model of power sharing and devolution within a ‘united, undivided and indivisible Sri Lanka”– has not been implemented.

The late Tamil leader, R Sambanthan, had said: “India has special duty in ensuring the resolution of the Tamil question”. But no longer do Indian leaders even mention the implementation of the 13th Amendment or talk about reconciliation that followed military excesses during the Eelam war. Admittedly, Colombo has built a memorial to uphold the sacrifices of 1257 Indian Peace Keeping Force soldiers who facilitated the ultimate defeat of LTTE, back in 1990.

Traditionally, Sri Lankan leaders used to say: “We look to India for our security and China for economic growth”. After the 2022 economic meltdown and debt crisis, the tables have been turned, especially after India provided the $4 billion financial lifeline.

Still, the Trinco Energy Hub is breaking news. Colombo’s Daily Mirror , a premier newspaper, described it as follows on April 22: “It is no longer a matter of strategic vision but how urgently it can be executed”.

What a long way the Trinco story has travelled.