Lebanon expects two shipments of Iraqi fuel in March

Shafaq News/ A source inside Lebanon's Electricité du Liban (EDL) has revealed that two fuel oil shipments from Iraq, each carrying 60,000 tons, are expected to arrive in early March 2023.

The Iraqi and Lebanese governments had previously agreed on a fixed delivery schedule with six shipments scheduled to be delivered between March and April of this year.

The deal was signed in July 2021 in a bid to provide Lebanon with one million tons of fuel oil to address the country's ongoing electricity crisis. The first shipment, carrying 31,000 tons, reached Lebanon in September 2021.

Fuel oil, a byproduct of oil refining, is used as a heavy fuel source in furnaces and boilers for heat and power generation.

Under the heavy fuel oil deal, Iraq provides the Lebanese government with the fuel in exchange for services including health care for Iraqi citizens.

Lebanon then swaps the heavy fuel oil for gas oil that it can use at its power stations, which have operated for decades at partial capacity but have almost de facto shut down during a financial crisis that has hit the state’s ability to buy fuel.

In August 2022, the Iraqi cabinet approved the extension of the fuel oil sales agreement with Lebanon, citing the nation's challenging economic situation as a key factor in their decision.

In May 2023, Baghdad agreed to increase the volume of heavy fuel oil supplied under an existing deal by 50 percent to 1.5 million metric tons.