The Lebanese government is preparing to send a technical delegation to Iran to negotiate acquiring "free" fuel to ease the power outages crisis in the country, which now supplies only one or two hours of state-provided electricity per day.
Lebanon is seeking Iranian fuel and wants to avoid US sanctions. If the deal is completed, the fuel deliveries will be the first shipments Iran sends directly to the Lebanese government, after it previously sent some to Hezbollah.
Reuters quoted two Lebanese government sources as saying that Iran's ambassador to Beirut Mojtaba Amani proposed an Iranian "gift" of fuel to the Lebanese state.
"We are working on this being a donation and not a purchase so that we can avoid sanctions," one of the sources said.
The United States has heavily sanctioned Iran's energy sector, which means any party engaging in a financial transaction with it could be subject to secondary sanctions.
A second government source told Reuters that Amani presented the offer to the caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, who provided the envoy with specifications for the fuel grade needed to operate the Lebanese power stations.
The source indicated that Mikati asked Energy Minister Walid Fayad to prepare a technical delegation to discuss the technical details with officials in Tehran.
According to the first source, the delegation would be in Tehran in the coming days.
An Iranian official told Reuters that a Lebanese delegation would be in Tehran shortly "to discuss various issues," without elaborating.
"We have repeatedly expressed Iran's readiness to help Lebanon resolve its fuel crisis," the official said.
Last year, Iran sent fuel to Hezbollah, shipped it to Syria, then transported it to Lebanon in trucks to avoid sanctions.
The United States took no action on that last year, and the embassy had no immediate comment on the possibility of a Lebanese government delegation visiting Tehran.
