The Ministry of Energy and Water is preparing to use its last available solutions to avoid the anticipated complete blackout in the coming four days. Therefore, the Electricité du Liban will start paying the dues for Iraqi fuel from collection funds in Lebanese pounds owed by public administrations and institutions. While the institution has funds in dollars, it has unpaid invoices in Lebanese pounds due from public institutions and administrations. These latter were expected to settle their bills to the electricity company for the period from November 2022 to June 2023 through a treasury advance approved by Decree 12816 amounting to 6.850 trillion Lebanese pounds. However, months after the approval of this advance, only 1 trillion Lebanese pounds have been delivered to the institution. Since the price of Iraqi fuel is paid in Lebanese pounds, the institution does not have to spend its dollar reserves to settle the cost of Iraqi fuel; instead, it can use these dollars to purchase more fuel necessary for running electricity plants and to increase electricity production by three hours daily.
This matter is expected to be discussed today in the Cabinet, and the General Secretariat of the Cabinet has issued an addendum to the agenda for today’s session, which includes five additional items, one of which pertains to the request from the Ministry of Energy and Water to secure the payment dues for Electricité du Liban for fuels, and to cover the dues to Iraq in implementation of the fuel oil sale agreement. It is anticipated that, if no quantity of fuel is unloaded in the reservoirs of Electricité du Liban, electricity will completely cease after four days, on the 17th of this month, due to the depletion of the available reserve of fuel oil. Fayyad clarified in his letter to the Cabinet that he intends to finalize the contract for purchasing 30,000 tons of fuel oil on a spot cargo basis. This tender was provisionally awarded in July but has not yet been finalized, according to "Al-Akhbar."
