Civil defense crews in collaboration with Electricite du Liban (EDL) and Karadeniz, a Turkish firm that owns the power ship Fatmagül Sultan, were able to contain a minor oil spill off Zouk’s coast last night.
The spill occurred as a ship was unloading fuel tanks for the Zouk power plant at 10:40 pm on February 3rd.
EDL stated, “The pumping pipeline burst off, which resulted in the leakage of around 100 cubic meters of fuel oil, part of which landed on land and another into the sea and were immediately contained.”
They’ve been cleaning the oil spill since 1:00 AM on Wednesday and were able to complete the clean up by night time.
Karpowership, a subsidiary of Karadeniz, said that the Fatmagül Sultan is in no way related to the spill that took place, saying that it was likely caused by a cracked pipe that was used to pump fuel into EDL’s tanks.
“It is worth mentioning that Karpowership’s staff operating Fatmagül Sultan was completely mobilized to assist the Civil Defense units and the workers at EDL to contain the leak,” they added.
This is, however, not the first oil spill that the company was allegedly involved in. They previously denied responsibility for a spill that took place in Zouk on May 3rd, 2019.
According to their website, the Karpowership was awarded a contract in 2012 by EDL under former Prime Minister Najib Mikati to provide 2 power-ships producing 270 Megawatts of electricity.
The capacity had increased since then reaching 370 Megawatts in 2016 for another two years, using ships that were docked in the Zouk and Jieh municipalities.
The company provides 25% of Lebanon’s electricity and they claim that they are the cheapest and most reliable source of electricity for the country.
The Lebanese government is said to pay the company $142 million a year. However, there are claims that the contract amounts to $1.8 billion, which Karpowership denies.
This makes the Turkish company one of Lebanon’s largest contributors of electricity in the region.
