AMMAN – Egypt’s natural gas pipelines should reach Lebanon via Jordan and Syria soon after maintenance and a review of a deal that was disrupted 10 years ago is finalized in early October, ministers from the four countries said on Wednesday.
There is no date yet on when the gas will be available. But reviving the Arab gas pipeline to deliver Egyptian gas to Lebanon comes at a time when the small country is grappling with a serious energy crisis.
Lebanese Energy Minister Raymond Ghajar said the World Bank would help fund his cash-crunched government guarantee payment for the gas, which is expected to help the country’s only natural gas plant in northern Lebanon produce 450 megawatts of electricity.
Speaking at a news conference with three ministers in Amman, Jordan’s Energy Minister Hala al-Zawati said the infrastructure needed to be checked after a 10-year hiatus to restart gas flow in Lebanon. These should be finished in three weeks.
“It is almost ready. A few things need to be fixed here,” she said.
Egyptian Energy Minister Tarek Mulla said some sections of the deal would also need to be reviewed. He did not elaborate.
“We put out a roadmap with the ministers and technical teams. We will confirm in the coming weeks that everything is ready to be able to pump gas at the earliest possible opportunity,” he said.
Ghajar said the World Bank would offer a partial risk guarantee to ensure that a commercial deal takes place. He did not say how much it would cost, but said Lebanon was working with the World Bank to secure the deal.
Lebanon is witnessing an economic crisis described as one of the world’s worst economic crises since the 1850s. Shortages of medicine, fuel and basic supplies have often brought the country to a standstill, while political disagreements have stymied efforts to form a government to negotiate a rescue package with international financial institutions.
Arab cooperation to deliver gas to Lebanon via Syria represents a significant thawing of ties between the war-ravaged country and its neighbours, most of whom had either severed diplomatic ties during the 10-year civil war or There were limited ties to security cooperation.
Bashar Assad’s Syrian government is under US and Western sanctions for its role in the brutal war, in which nearly half a million people died and disappeared and nearly half the population was displaced.
Despite the sanctions, the United States has supported the restoration of natural gas from Egypt to Lebanon via Syria.
Syrian Oil Minister Bassem Tomeh said the Syrian grid – which was damaged and ransacked in recent years – has been fixed, but technical teams are making sure it is ready for use.
“God willing, we will support any joint Arab action that considers the interests of our people,” he said.