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1.The country’s leadership is aiming for quick instead of sustainable results, due to the spreading sense of urgency and having run out of options and foreign currency reserves
2.The government is unlikely to get a public buy-in for electricity plans in the absence of transparency and accountability, after decades of corruption
3.The private sector and investors are less likely to commit capital because of the financial crisis
4.The local devaluating currency and rising unemployment, make it hard for the government and citizens to foot any major bills
5.All power sector contracts will be signed in US dollars while collection remain is in the still-devaluating Lebanese pound, which implies maintaining the subsidies even with a tariff hike
6.Oil importers are blocking both investments in new gas infrastructure as well as and the use of gas in habilitated existing infrastructure
7.Generator owners, operators, importers and maintenance actors are blocking the upgrade of current infrastructure (mainly the network) because bridging pent-up demand would put them out of business (market size $2bn)
8.As a result of limited network capacity, there is no quick fix, and the reliance on private generators’ local microgrids remain the only way to fill EDL’s generation gap in the short term
9.The use of gas is problematic because of the need for a North-South pipeline that would require expropriations and would lead to security issues
10.There is a political disagreement regarding the number of Floating Storage Regasification Units (FSRU) – (politically satisfying number is 3, technical need is 1 or 2, while the cost of 1 FSRU is at $400 million/year each for a duration of 10 years)
11.Privatization is problematic because the majority of potential buyers are within the power oligarchs’ circles
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