Total power outage in Lebanon to last days as fuel shortage shuts down grid

The al Zahrani and the Deir Ammar power stations in Lebanon have stopped working due to a complete lack of diesel, leaving much of the country without electricity

Lebanon has been plunged into darkness by a total power outage that will continue for days.

The Middle Eastern country has limited electricity after its biggest two power stations shut down due to a fuel shortage, a government official said on Saturday.

The al Zahrani and the Deir Ammar power stations stopped working due to a complete lack of diesel as energy production dropped to below 200 megawatts.

That is roughly enough to power the equivalent of 400,000 UK homes, in a country of more than six million people.

An official said: “The Lebanese power network completely stopped working at noon today, and it is unlikely that it will work until next Monday, or for several days.”

They added that the state electricity company would try to use the army’s fuel oil reserve to operate the power plants temporarily, but that would not happen anytime soon.

Many Lebanese normally rely on private generators run on diesel, although that is in short supply.

Lebanon is suffering what the World Bank has described as one of the deepest depressions in modern history.

Its economic meltdown has thrown three-quarters of the population into poverty and the Lebanese pound has lost 90% of its value in the past two years.

It is currently in the grips of a serious fuel shortage that has forced many businesses to close.

Those not finding supplies through the black market have been left to queue up for miles to fill up their cars.

The huge demand for fuel led to tragedy last month when a man died after swallowing petrol while trying to siphon it out of a vehicle’s tank.

In August, 20 people were killed when a fuel tank exploded in northern Lebanon where it was illegally stored in a warehouse.

While significantly less severe, the UK is also dealing with a fuel shortage following a wave of panic buying.

Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), said only 71% of filling stations in London and the South East have both petrol and diesel compared with 90% in the rest of Britain.

He warned that fuel supplies are being sent to “the wrong parts of the country”.

The Government insisted “the situation is improving”.

Mr Madderson claimed independent retailers are being denied access to information from discussions between the Government, hauliers and oil companies.

“We do not know when the deliveries are arriving and we do not know how they are being prioritised,” he said.

“The return to normal fuel volumes continues to be blighted by the current inept prioritisation policy.”

Figures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) show that filling station storage tanks in the South East – including London – were 16% full at the end of the day on Sunday, compared with 25% across the whole of Britain.

Average stock levels in Britain sank to 15% on Saturday September 25, the day after panic buying began.