Electricité de Jbeil on Saturday announced extended rationing hours. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Electricité de Jbeil on Wednesday announced extended rationing hours due to technical malfunctions and a lack of diesel supply for its system of back-up generators.
Here’s what we know:
• The company released a statement announcing timetables of when it was unable to provide power for its local consumers in Jbeil, a seaside town in northern Lebanon.
• Electricité de Jbeil is a subsidiary of Vectra Holding SAL, which last year acquired Wardieh Holdings Inc. SAL, one of Lebanon’s private sector fuel importers and gas station operators.
• The spokesperson for the Fuel Distributors’ Syndicate, Fadi Abou Chakra, on Monday told L’Orient Today that diesel, which fuels the country’s back-up generators, has been in short supply for around a week due to high demand brought on by low temperatures.
• The head of the Association of Petroleum Importing Companies, Maroun Chammas, meanwhile, said that stormy weather had interfered with the unloading of fuel tanker ships along Lebanon’s coast, adding that he suspects diesel was being hoarded as well in anticipation of a possible devaluation in the lira’s value.