Lebanese wait to fill their gas cylinders in the southern city of Sidon amidst a deepening economic crisis. (Credit: Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP)
BEIRUT — Lines formed Tuesday in front of gas supply points in the south of the country following warnings over the weekend that Lebanon only has a sufficient stock of gas cylinders to last one week.
Here’s what we know:
• Dozens of people were waiting this morning in front of the gas supply points in Saida, L’Orient-Le Jour’s correspondent Mountasser Abdallah reported, while the NNA reported similar lines in Zahrani. In a video sent by L’Orient-Le Jour’s correspondent, a man exclaims, “And that is the humiliation of gas now, after that of gasoline” as he pointed to a line of people carrying gas canisters as they waited to fill them.
• The president of the syndicate of gas workers, Farid Zeinoun, warned on Saturday that the stock of gas cylinders in the country was only sufficient for a week. Zeinoun said the shortage was due to failure on the part of Banque du Liban to open of lines of credit for gas imports.
• Since the onset of the economic and financial crisis in 2019, the central bank has subsidized essential goods, such as gasoline, gas, flour and medicines. But its reserves have reached a critical threshold, prompting it to reduce these subsidies, before presumably having to lift them completely in the near future.
• Meanwhile, the country continues to suffer from severe shortages, especially of diesel, with these products now being sold at exorbitant prices on the black market. These shortages are reportedly exacerbated by smuggling to Syria and the illegal storage of fuel in warehouses or in private homes. According to an NNA report, the army on Tuesday morning seized a stock of diesel hidden in an illegal tank in Baalbeck in the Bekaa.