Lebanon no longer has electricity from its power plants due to fuel shortages that have led it to close its two main production sites, a Lebanese official told Reuters on Saturday (October 9th), adding that he was “Unlikely that he can be put back into office before next Monday”.
According to the Lebanese TV channel LBCI, the two power plants of Zahrani (South) and Deir Ammar (North) were shut down on Saturday, lowering production to less than 270 megawatts and plunging the country into “Absolute black”. The channel specifies that the national company, Electricité du Liban (EDL), was trying to restore power “Manually”, since its main headquarters were completely destroyed by the explosion of the port of Beirut in August 2020.
“It is impossible for the moment to restore the current”, acknowledged EDL to the newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour, which reports that according to the company, a cargo of fuel oil is due to arrive on Saturday but will not be unloaded at the Zouk (Kesrouan) and Jiyé (south of Beirut) plants until early next week.
The fuel shortage in Lebanon has drastically reduced public electricity production in the country in recent months. A general blackout had already occurred the previous Saturday, after the shutdown of production from two floating power plants. As of September 23, EDL had warned of the risk of a total blackout lack of current production capacity.
Electricity has been rationed for a long time, leading to cuts of several hours a day in certain regions of Lebanon, and private operators now offer alternative electricity services from generators, as the doctoral student in sociology explains. Alix Chaplain in The Conversation.