Lebanon disclosed its plan for a US$350 million gas pipeline project along the Lebanese coast according to its Energy and Water minister, Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper reported.
Jibran Bassil said that the project could cut the country’s energy bill by $740 million per year.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Bassil said that the project, which still needs to be ratified by the Cabinet will involve the installation of 174 kilometres of gas pipeline from Dier Ammar power station in Tripoli right through to Tyre in the south and will be laid beside a coastal railway track.
The project is part of the so-called Arab gas pipeline that links Turkey with Russia and other Central Asian republics and is expected to be completed in 2012. In the first phase, the gas, in principle, will come from Egypt crossing through Jordan and Syria.
Bassil said that once Lebanon starts exploring gas off the coast in a few years, the country will be able to channel the gas through the new pipeline, the paper reported.
“This project is part of the plan which was submitted to the Cabinet a few months ago to restructure the electricity sector. The companies which won tenders to carry out the research on this project were ACE in collaboration with IMEG. The cost of the study was $1.05 million,” the minister said.
Lebanon has been hit hard financially due to a sharp rise in fuel costs and its ageing power stations which run on oil and gas have further added to its woes, the paper said.
The country’s Finance Ministry estimated the annual deficit in the electricity sector at more than $1.5 billion each year and the bulk of this money goes to cover the cost of fuel oil.
The minister said that to date, 19 companies have been qualified to build the gas pipeline adding that five of the companies have expressed readiness to finance this project. Bassil emphasised that Lebanon will be able to completely pay for the project in less than six months.
