Lanka Marine Service (Private) Ltd. (LMS), the John Keells Holdings subsidiary, succeeded in moving out most of the fuel held in tanks at the on-shore facility in Walls Lane, Kotahena by midnight Friday, a company spokesman said.

``We were able to get most of the oil out except for a little left in the tanks and the pipeline,'' he said.

The Supreme Court set a deadline of Sept. 12 for LMS to get its oil out of the tanks and said that ownership of any remaining stock will pass to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority.

The company had an initial problem in pumping out nearly USD 15 million worth of stocks in the facility as LMS employees, concerned about possible loss of employment, refused to pump the fuel into two tankers that were brought here for the purpose.

Last week the company reached agreement with the workers under terms of which they agreed to assist in removing the oil and lubricants if the company deposits a sum of money payable to them as a terminal award if there was loss of employment.

Accordingly, Rs. 153.2 million was lodged in a bank account for purposes of meeting any future liability in terms of a Labour Department determination.

LMS which had engaged a tanker on a long-term charter for storage of oil for continuing its bunker supply business said that by this week it will be providing its customers with all grades of bunker fuels as in the past using a combination of floating storage and the proposed shared land storage facility to be run by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority.

Asked whether SLPA will allocate either a separate tank or tanks for licensed bunker suppliers who will all be permitted use of the on-shore storage facility, the spokesman said that these arrangements have not yet been clarified.

``We don't yet know whether the various suppliers will be allocated separate tanks or whether we will have to share storage in the same tanks,'' the spokesman said. ``These matters are expected to be clarified early.''