Jaber heads to Baghdad to boost Lebanon-Iraq coordination

L'Orient-Le Jour

05-05-2025

BEIRUT — Finance Minister, Yassin Jaber, left for Baghdad on Monday to hold meetings with a number of senior Iraqi officials to enhance the coordination between Lebanon and Iraq, especially on the issue of supplying Lebanon with fuel for the electricity sector, as well as to discuss issues related to telecommunications and the oil supply pipeline, the Ministry of Finance stated.
Jaber held a meeting with Energy Minister Joe Saddi on Friday to discuss this trip, in which Saddi was also supposed to take part.
Upon his departure from the Rafik Hariri International Airport, Jaber said: "The visit to Iraq has several objectives, in addition to thanking Iraq for the great support it has provided to Lebanon over the past years, especially during the war, such as providing fuel for electricity, it has recently started providing shipments of wheat and continues to offer other forms of social aid."
On Monday, President Joseph Aoun met with the Secretary-General of the Iraqi National Project, Sheikh Jamal al-Dhari, according to the Lebanese Presidency.
Following the meeting, al-Dhari said that they discussed "strengthening and developing Lebanese-Iraqi relations at various levels.
He added that he appreciated Aoun's "position with regard to limiting weapons to the state, as the state can only be built on a unified political and security decision."
Hezbollah and Israel were engaged in a conflict that began in October 2023 and escalated in September 2024 before a cease-fire was reached in November 2024.
"We will also discuss topics of interest to both countries, such as electricity, telecommunications, the fiber optic network which could extend from Lebanon to Europe, the oil pipeline, and settling Lebanon's outstanding dues", he added. In June 2024, Lebanon's former energy minister, Walid Fayyad, indicated that a meeting had been held between former Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the Iraqi Investment Authority to discuss the relaunch of a pipeline project linking the two countries with the aim of sending Iraqi oil to European markets.
At the end of March Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamad Chia al-Soudani announced that his country will supply fuel to Lebanon for a period of six months.
A fuel supply contract had been concluded between Lebanon and Iraq as part of the agreement signed in the summer of 2021, which has been renewed since then. This agreement stipulates that Iraq, through SOMO (the public agency responsible for marketing Iraqi oil), will provide a monthly shipment of crude oil to a third-party company, which, in return, delivers an amount of fuel compatible with Lebanon's Electricité du Liban (EDL) power plants, with the value equivalent to the crude oil received.
On Feb. 12, Joe Saddi, the Minister of Energy and Water in the government of Nawaf Salam, signed the renewal of this agreement. The new extension, which took effect on March 1, involves a quantity ranging from 1.5 to 2 million tons over a year, which is 500,000 tons more than the amount specified in the previous contract.
Recently, EDL had rationed its supply due to a delay in the delivery of the last fuel shipment expected under the barter agreement between Iraq and Lebanon.
Lebanon's electricity sector is hindered by structural gaps and insufficient capacity to meet the country's needs, which relies on private generator owners for additional power supply.