Treasury transfers to EDL drop

Payments represent 20 percent of primary expenditures

Treasury transfers to Elecricité du Liban (EDL) in the first six months of 2013 were $39 million lower compared to the same period of 2012, reaching $942 million. “This decrease is a result of lower payments to Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) and Algerian Sonatrach for fuel oil and gas oil purchases,” according to the Ministry of Finance.

The component “Reimbursement of KPC and Sonatrach Agreements” reached $915 million in 2013, a four percent decrease mainly driven by lower quantity of fuel oil purchases.

EDL contributed by only 2.3 percent of the total oil bill this year to repaying of KPC and Sonatrach. This figure was almost the same as the contribution percentage of 2012.

With primary expenditures at $4.83 billion in the first six months of 2013, the share of transfers to EDL reached 19.5 percent, a lower share than that paid in 2012, which reached 22.8 percent.