Minister of Energy and Water in the Lebanese caretaker government, Walid Fayyad
Beirut: The Minister of Energy and Water in the Lebanese caretaker government, Walid Fayyad, welcomed on Friday any Iranian donation to extend Electricity coefficient with fuel.
In an interview with the local newspaper, Al-Jumhuriya, Fayyad said, “As a competent minister, I accept receiving Iranian fuel within the framework of a free gift, and I have no problem with that.”
Secretary General of HezbollahHassan Nasrallah, “I am ready to bring Iranian oil to Lebanon for free if the Lebanese government accepts,” he said Tuesday.
Lebanon’s economy is suffering from a crisis of the scarcity of fuel needed to generate electric power, which has affected the period of power supply to the utilities, which does not exceed 8 hours in the best case.
The Lebanese minister said: “No one can object to any offer of this kind, especially when the Lebanese are threatened with darkness.”
Fayyad focused on, “We expect support from everyone in the context of using fuel, if it is free, and from any country.”
However, he pointed out that the agreement to draw gas from Egypt through Syria remains, in principle, the most appropriate and fastest option, “because it achieves a sustainable solution at the best prices.”
He added, “But the problem lies in the requests of the World Bank, which will undertake the financing, and in obtaining the final written assurance from the US Treasury Department, that there are no negative repercussions from the Caesar Act on these agreements.”
Iranian oil exports are subject to US sanctions, which raised Lebanese politicians’ fears that Lebanon might be subject to sanctions due to Hezbollah’s import of Iranian oil.
There are 7 power plants in Lebanon, 5 of which stopped working during the last period, while the Deir Ammar and Al-Zahrani plants provide 40% of the country’s energy.
For about a year, Lebanon has been suffering from power outages in facilities and homes for long hours, due to the scarcity of fuel allocated to operate generating stations, due to the lack of foreign exchange allocated for import.
The country has also been suffering for more than two and a half years, a severe economic and financial crisis, which has caused a sharp deterioration in the value of the national currency against the dollar, a shortage of fuel, medicine and other basic commodities, and an unprecedented rise in poverty rates.
(Anatolia)