Lebanon Makes Partial Payment To Power Plants To Avert Complete Blackout
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Roshan Amiri
- . July 7, 2022
- . Update: July 8, 2022 12:29 pm
Lebanon–A complete blackout situation was averted as Lebanon could pay-up a part of the debt it owed to the electricity stations in their country. The country has been running in debt for the longest time with residents forced to run their homes on diesel generators.
The national energy company Electricity du Liban had warned that it would have to stop supplying electricity as it had used up most of its fuel reserves. The company’s output has not matched demand since the end of the 15-year civil war in 1990. Production has decreased further following the country’s economic collapse in 2019.
But recently, the company had to inform the government that electricity would become nil as no money had been paid to operator Primesouth. As a result, Zahrani and Deir Ammar power plants would close at 5pm.
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Currently, these are the only two stations operating in the country. According to EDL, the government had, since the beginning of the year, spent “only $60 million for the instalments expected by all EDL contractors, an amount which is not sufficient to accomplish a minimum of the required operations.” It is unclear exactly how much the government owes.
Lebanon’s economy has been running on debts. In April, it lost support of the UN too; as the agency asked Lebanese government to find a long-term solution to its fuel scarcity.
Lebanon has already inked a deal with Egypt to receive natural gas via Syria. The deal is to last for 10 years and is said to be looking at an US approval, while the White House said that it has already given a go-ahead to the program that will supply 650 cubic meters of gas to Lebanon.
