Out of fuel. All of Lebanon in blackout
The whole of Lebanon was plunged into darkness on Saturday, with the electricity grid completely shut down after the small Mediterranean country's two main power plants reportedly ran out of fuel. "The Al Zahrani and Deir Ammar power plants shut down after diesel supplies were apparently exhausted and power generation dropped below 200 megawatts," reports Sky News .
A Lebanese official confirmed to Reuters that the blackout is expected to last several days. "The Lebanese electricity grid has completely stopped working today at noon and it is unlikely that it will work until next Monday, or for several days," the official said.
Via the BBC / Twitter correspondent
"The official said the state-owned power company will try to use the army's fuel oil reserve to temporarily run power plants, but that won't happen anytime soon," Reuters noted.
Major Lebanese cities and towns have experienced blackouts in recent months, but this appears to be the worst, the largest and most enduring: the increasing misery of a Lebanese population still in the midst of an economic crisis, a persistent shortage of fuel, and which has seen the local currency plummet by 90% since 2019.
Much of the past year in Lebanon has seen scenes of sometimes kilometer-long queues at gas stations, with brawls and disputes over refueling becoming almost routine. Residents and entrepreneurs have tried to resist through generators and accumulate personal fuel supplies as far as possible for those who can afford it.
Some Lebanese interviewed by Middle East Eye told the publication that moving around at night in a completely dark city is like "reliving the civil war" – referring to the long war and the collapse of infrastructure that gripped the country from 1975 to 1990.
Further details of the report that energy authorities began warning last month that a major nationwide blackout was on the way:
Lebanese state-owned electric company, Electricite du Liban (EDL), warned in September that the country could plunge into a total blackout in October amid dwindling fuel reserves as the company is unable to generate the minimum 600 megawatts. needed every day for the network to function properly.
On October 3, EDL again raised the alarm when the electricity grid was cut across the country, meaning Lebanon's residents are now completely dependent on expensive private generators for energy, if they can afford it.
In recent weeks, Lebanon has started receiving shipments of Iranian fuel, controversial and with the help of Syria and Hezbollah, but for now it seems that the oil tankers sent by Iran have been too few and too late to alleviate the immediate crisis. In theory, the problem could be quickly remedied with some Saudi oil tankers or even with Israeli transports, but, in this case, it is politics that put a spanner in the works. The solution is around the corner, but a difficult corner to turn.
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The article Out of fuel. All of Lebanon in blackout comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/finito-il-carburante-tutto-il-libano-in-blackout/ on Sat, 09 Oct 2021 16:47:00 +0000.