Lebanon expects four hours of electricity production by January

When the government of Prime Minister Najib Mikati approved the emergency plan aimed at increasing the hours of electricity supply, the program was based on two main pillars:

The first is represented by Electricité du Liban (EDL) raising the kilowatt tariff to 27 cents per kilowatt after one hundred kilowatts of consumption and ten cents for the first hundred kilowatts. That was implemented starting in November.

The second pillar is purchasing fuel and gas oil to increase production from the plants, at a value of $600 million, to be paid by the central bank (BDL) over five months. This is directly linked to the new price to help EDL to purchase the required quantities later. This initial plan promised the Lebanese that it would provide them with between 8 and 10 hours of daily power supply.

The tariff was raised, and the tenders for the purchase of fuel and gas oil were completed, but the expected ten hours soon fell to less than half, and the reason is the central bank.

On Tuesday evening, a meeting related to the issue was held in the Grand Serail, chaired by Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and attended by Ministers of Energy Walid Fayyad and Finance Minister Youssef Khalil and the Governor of the Banque du Liban Riad Salameh, in addition to Director General of EDL Kamal Hayek and Mikati's advisor former Minister Nicolas Nahhas.

In the meeting mentioned above, the Minister of Energy heard directly from the central bank governor, who said: I will not finance the electricity plan by more than 300 million dollars.

$300 million will provide EDL with a production capacity of four hours of electricity per day. 

It is expected that production will start - if Salameh keeps his promise - at the end of this December or early 2023 at the maximum. 

The promise to return electricity to ten hours a day fell through as soon as BDL's governor said his word.