Power Barge Fatmagul Sultan Back to Full Capacity

The Turkish ship Fatmagul Sultan has resumed power generation after the malfunctions were fixed, Électricité du Liban announced on Tuesday.

“Starting 8:30 a.m., the Turkish power-generating ship Fatmagul Sultan resumed producing electricity and its units were gradually reconnected to the grid, after it had stopped its production in late April,” EDL said in a statement.

“It is expected that all units will be put in service in the next few hours and will raise the vessel's production capacity to around 180 megawatts,” EDL added.

Informed sources had told al-Liwaa newspaper that the ship will resume operating at full capacity on Tuesday after the malfunctions caused by bad fuel had been fixed.

The sources said that the operator of Fatmagul Sultan has received the appropriate fuel that it was expecting since last May.

Media reports said in April that nine out of 11 generators had stopped functioning and that the barge was only producing 15 percent of its 188-megawatts capacity.

Al-Liwaa quoted EDL sources as saying that the state-owned firm is awaiting an official memo from Karadeniz on the alleged resumption of Fatmagul Sultan's operations.

Asked about a second power-generating ship, the sources said that the contract signed with the Turkish company states that the vessel should start operating on June 12 to provide an additional 82 megawatts of power.

But the ship hasn't set anchor in Lebanon yet.

Chronic power shortages since the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war have been a main source of grievance among Lebanese who have had to put up with daily cuts.

Electricity output reaches 1,700 megawatts on average in the summer at a time when the demand stands at 2,500 megawatts.