Lebanese Minister of Energy says his country may reach complete blackout by end of March

The Lebanese Minister of Energy Raymond Ghajar has warned that his country has enough money to import the fuel that is necessary for electricity until the end of March only, pointing out that the country may reach the stage of complete blackout by the end of this month.

In a statement to the Lebanese LBCI TV Channel, Ghajar said “we have enough money to import fuel for Lebanon’s electricity until the end of this March relying on a financial advance from the state treasury, but if this financial resource is not available we may reach a state of complete blackout by the end of this month.”

“We sought by all means to secure the financial advance for Lebanon’s electricity and submitted to the Cabinet a law to achieve this. We reached this stage due to a structural problem in tariffs,” Al-Ghajar added.

He went on to say that according to an agreement Iraq will supply Lebanon with 500,000 tons of black fuel, but Lebanon needs a million tons.

 “What we will do is to replace this oil by putting its value in the Bank of Lebanon, provided that this amount of money will be spent exclusively inside Lebanon, and we are waiting for the signature of the Iraqi government,” the minister clarified.

Hamda Mustafa