Dinouk Colombage

#Coal Scam #SriLanka: This story is not confined within Sri Lanka's borders. When do we look at the role of the laboratories? Independent tests carried out by the accredited international laboratory Bureau Veritas (BV) on Trident Chemphar’s coal sold to Sri Lanka between Jan and Jun 2026 showed that none of the supplier’s 19 consignments was above the tender’s minimum reject gross calorific value of 5,900 kilocalories per kg of coal. Then how did two other laboratories—one chosen by the Indian supplier and the other via tender by Lanka Coal Company (Pvt) Ltd (LCC)—produce such vastly different outcomes to both the BV results and data from the Lakivijaya power plant’s (LVPP) own lab? How did one of these labs suddenly start releasing reports that closely matched the BV results (which came weeks later) from Trident’s 12th shipment onwards? And how did this fiasco occur? Were the samples switched, or the labs compromised? Without arriving at conclusions, we let the official data and documents speak. 1) There were serious issues from the start about the laboratory nominated by Trident. But LCC went ahead anyway. 2) Doubt was cast upon LVPP lab results, saying that the lab wasn't "accredited". But LVPP consistently failed to generate optimum electricity when Trident coal was fed into it. 3) The lab selected by LCC suddenly started producing results that closely matched both LVPP lab results and BV lab results from the 12th shipment onwards. 4) BV had to be hired as a third umpire to bring some sense into the picture. 5) In the end, it took FOUR labs. sundaytimes.lk/260816/news/c…