Second power barge to arrive this August

Delay due to breakdown of Fatmagul

The second Turkish power barge, Orhan Bey, will arrive by August 12. Ralph Faisal, local representative of the Turkish firm Karadeniz, said: “We were informed that the power ship will leave Turkey during the first week of August and is expected to arrive on August 12, depending on weather conditions.” Orhan Bey is expected to generate 129 MW of electricity.

Orhan Bey was supposed to dock in Jiyeh last June. “Complications in the first power ship, Fatmagul Sultan, delayed the installation of proper ship equipment,” said Faisal.

Fatmagul Sultan had docked along the Zouk coast in February from where it was directly connected to the Électricité du Liban (EDL) main power grid. The barge stopped production only a few weeks after launching operations. “The fuel shipments caused all 198 injection pumps on board the ship to break down. We had to dismantle and replace all of them," said Faisal.

Karadeniz has received two fuel shipments from EDL. The acidity level in fuel must not exceed two percent. But the delivered shipments had an acidity exceeding 16 percent. "By the time we received the preliminary results of fuel tests, it was too late,” said Faisal. The EDL maintained that the fuel it delivered was compliant with the terms of reference, and that the shipments had been tested in international labs.