India’s Adani Group opens giant container terminal in Sri Lanka

India’s Adani Group said on Monday it had opened an $800 million container terminal in Sri Lanka, right next to a similar facility operated by a Chinese company.

The Adani development at Sri Lanka’s main seaport in Colombo is widely seen as a counter to the rival Chinese terminal and as a means for India to secure a foothold at the strategic facility.

The launch of the Adani-operated facility came a day after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded a state visit to Sri Lanka during which he secured defence and energy deals with Colombo.

“The commencement of operations at CWIT (Colombo West International Terminal) marks a momentous milestone in regional cooperation between India and Sri Lanka,” billionaire chairman Gautam Adani, a key ally of Modi, said in a statement.

Sri Lanka lies at a key halfway point along the main east-west international maritime route and Colombo is a major transhipment hub for South Asia.

The company said it had completed 600 metres (660 yards) out of a final 1,400-metre long berth with a depth of 20 metres that is able to handle the largest container ships.

“Not only does this terminal represent the future of trade in the Indian Ocean, but its opening is also a proud moment for Sri Lanka, placing it firmly on the global maritime map,” Adani said.

The joint venture went ahead despite the Indian conglomerate withdrawing in December a request for a US government-backed $533 million loan for the construction.

The move followed an indictment in New York in November 2024, which accused the Adani Group of deliberately misleading international investors as part of a bribery scheme. Adani has denied any wrongdoing.

The other partners in the Adani port venture are Sri Lanka’s publicly listed John Keells Holdings and the state-owned Sri Lanka Ports Authority.

Construction began in early 2022, with the first phase featuring eight automated ship-to-shore cranes and 18 gantry cranes.

There were no public statements from either side during Modi’s visit about Adani’s withdrawal from another venture, a $442 million wind power project in the north of Sri Lanka.

That withdrawal followed a decision by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s administration to revoke a power purchase agreement with the Adani Group in order to negotiate lower energy prices.

Dissanayake’s party had strongly criticised the deal as “corrupt” and called for it to be renegotiated.

India’s fuel demand up: India’s fuel demand in March hit a 10-month high, rising 9.3% from the previous month to 20.91 million metric tons, oil ministry data showed on Monday. India is the world’s third-largest consumer and importer of oil. The data is a proxy for the country’s oil demand. BY On a yearly basis, March fuel demand was down 3.1% from 21.57 million tons in the same month last year, the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell’s website showed. Sales of gasoline, or petrol, rose 10.6% to 3.5 million tons compared with last month’s 3.2 million tons, and were 5.7% higher than a year earlier.

Diesel consumption rose nearly 10% month-on-month to 8.1 million tons in March. Cooking gas or liquefied petroleum gas sales increased 4.2% on an annual basis to 2.72 million tons, while naphtha sales fell almost 5% compared with last year to 1.08 million tons. On a monthly basis, LPG and naphtha sales rose 5.8% and nearly 14%, respectively.

Sales of bitumen, used for making roads, were 18.4% higher, while fuel oil use ticked up by 1.5% in March, in comparison with February. India’s infrastructure output increased 2.9% year-on-year in February, its slowest pace in five months. India is considering a proposal to scrap import tax on US liquefied natural gas to boost purchases and help cut the trade surplus with Washington, government and industry sources said. “Trade tensions might have an impact on oil demand growth, but for now I would still expect Indian oil demand to keep rising unless the world shifts into a recession,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

Separately, India’s central bank could tolerate a sharper depreciation of the rupee if China lets the yuan weaken to cushion the impact of US tariffs, multiple sources aware of the central bank’s thinking said.

China and India compete in exports such as machinery, electronics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and textiles and three people familiar with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) thinking said the central bank had become increasingly focused on the yuan exchange rate over the last few months.

As well as making Indian exports less competitive, a weaker yuan could widen India’s already large trade deficit with China.

“The RBI has been relatively hands-off (this year). The rupee is automatically adjusting based on how currencies are moving globally, so the hands-offs approach will mostly continue,” one of the sources said.

Agencies