Delivery of a million liters of Iraqi fuel to Lebanon via Masnaa border crossing

Thirty-one Iraqi tanker trucks carrying one million liters of fuel arrived Monday at the Masnaa border crossing, as part of "the aid provided by Iraq to Lebanon," according to information from our regional correspondent.

The president of the Association of Fuel Importers, Maouran Chammas, confirmed that this is a "donation" from the Iraqi government to the Lebanese government to assist the displaced, and that the delivered fuel was "most likely mazut or diesel." He added that the trucks had transported the fuel to the Zahrani oil installations, near Saida in southern Lebanon, for redistribution.

Contacted by L’Orient-Le Jour, the Ministry has not yet been able to provide us with details of this delivery.

This delivery is therefore not part of the barter agreement put in place with Iraq in 2021 — and since renewed, including under the current Energy Minister Joe Saddi — to supply fuel to Électricité du Liban (EDL) under terms adjusted to be affordable for the public electricity supplier, whose financial difficulties and technical limitations have worsened since the onset of the economic and financial crisis that erupted in 2019.

The fact that the fuel was transported by land is related to the regional context. In early April, Iraq began exporting oil by tanker trucks via Syria, more than a month after the start of the war in the Middle East and the near closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Iraqi Oil Ministry had specified that Syria would ensure “the safe passage” of the oil and that exports would “gradually increase,” as part of an agreement running through June.