Iran Offers to Sell Lebanon Electricity at Competitive Price
Iran has expressed readiness to provide Lebanon with 200-400 megawatts of electricity to resolve the country’s lingering power crisis, Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour said in remarks published Sunday.
“Iran is ready to provide Lebanon with 200 to 400 MW which amount to 200 million kilowatt hours to 400 kilowatt hours,” Mansour told An Nahar after meeting with Iranian Ambassador Ghazanfar Roknabadi on Saturday.
Roknabadi handed the Lebanese FM a letter from his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi on a proposal to help Lebanon resolve severe electricity rationing throughout the country.
Asked if the proposal was an Iranian grant, Mansour said: “The offer is to sell this amount at a competitive and preferential price to Lebanon.”
He added that Roknabadi told him that Iran has an energy surplus of 6 billion kilowatt hours.
The ambassador told reporters following his talks with Mansour that based on Iran’s experience with several other countries in the region, Lebanon is in need of 1,000 MW of electricity.
“We consider this amount very limited given that we currently export around 25,000 MW and have a surplus of 6 billion,” he said.
Asked about the timing of the project’s implementation if approved by the cabinet, Roknabadi said: “The process to supply (the electricity) requires less than 6 months.”
“As for the building of (power) stations, the process requires a year for transformers that produce 500 MW and two years for transformers that produce 1,000 MW,” he added.
The Iranian offer came a few days before a cabinet session scheduled to be held on Tuesday to discuss the electricity crisis.
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