Iran to spend $1 bln on Lanka refinery - minister

NEW DELHI, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Iran is contributing $1 billion to help Sri Lanka double the capacity of its refinery to 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), the oil minister of the island nation, A.H.M. Fowzie told reporters.

"Iran will be giving us $1 billion and we will contribute about $500 million for the expansion," he told reporters on the sidelines of the Petrotech conference.

He said Sri Lanka has a term contract to buy 60,000 tonnes a month of Iran Light grade crude for its refinery, owned by Ceylon Petroleum.

Last year, Iran raised the credit period for crude purchases to four months from one month, he said. (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Mayank Bhardwaj and Rajkumar Ray; Editing by Mark Williams)