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Egypt aims to send gas to Lebanon via Jordan and Syria (Image: EIA)

Lebanon’s energy minister says Egypt

faces obstacles in implementing gas deal

EGYPT LEBANESE Energy Minister Walid Fayyad has regulatory body and review it.”
complained that Egypt is being unnecessarily The plan for delivering Egyptian gas to Leba-
prevented from upholding its pledge to deliver non via Syria has been under discussion since the
natural gas to Lebanon via Syria, according to a summer of 2021. The US government has voiced
report from Al-Masry Al-Youm. support for the initiative, which is designed to
Fayyad noted that the three countries had alleviate Lebanon’s chronic shortages of electric-
thus far not taken any concrete steps to imple- ity by providing enough fuel to keep 700 MW of
ment the gas supply agreement they signed three generating capacity online – that is, enough to
months ago. Cairo has at least tried to sign the boost local power supplies from two hours per
contracts necessary to move the deal forward day to 10 hours per day. However, planning has
but has run into the same obstacles confronting not moved forward rapidly.
all parties to the deal, he said. Fayyad said the World Bank was partially
The minister identified those obstacles as responsible for the slow pace of the process.
the US Caesar Act, which imposes sanctions on The bank had, “after a phase of negotiations
Syria, and the conditions imposed by the World last spring, changed [its] position and adopted
Bank, which has offered to finance the gas deal. a more conservative position and added up to
The World Bank has said that funding will hinge about [10] conditions” for making funding
on reform of the Lebanese power-generating available, he commented. “The Egyptian side
industry, which has added tens of billions of US confirmed its readiness completely, and we are
dollars to the country’s total public-sector debt. waiting for the World Bank,” he added.
The World Bank has “set requirements [for] The minister also noted the role played by
up to 10 items, the most prominent of which is US sanctions policy, saying: “[At] the same
related to the increase in the tariff price, which time, the point of the absence of sanctions on
we have already implemented in Lebanon,” the [countries involved in] this agreement
Fayyad was quoted as saying by Al-Masry remains on the subject of Syria, which is a third
al-Youm. “We explained with the new tariff how party to the agreement, and its receipt of part
it can cover the expenses and requirements of of this gas. There was a review from the World
the World Bank.” Bank because of the Caesar Act imposed on the
He continued: “[The] second thing is to leaders of Syria, and which prevents them from
establish an organisational structure for the [participating].” ™

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 38 22•September•2022