Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in early April pressed for the restoration of an oil pipeline between Iraq and Lebanon during a meeting with Iraqi president Barham Salih, calling on him to send an envoy to Lebanon to look into the matter.

Berri, while on an official visit to Iraq, said discussion had centered on “oil installations between Kirkuk and Tripoli, a topic we must return to.” The pipeline has been offline for some three decades, but has been the subject of renewed interest after Russian oil company Rosneft won a 20-year contract to rehabilitate, expand and operate oil installations in Tripoli.

LOGI has called on the Energy Ministry to make public its contract with Rosneft, which has so far been kept secret.

Rosneft also recently signed an agreement with Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government to explore areas of cooperation in the oil and gas field.

Meanwhile Amal Abou Zeid, an advisor to the Foreign Ministry on Russian affairs, was quoted as saying that President Michel Aoun had discussed the re-establishment of the pipeline with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a recent trip to Moscow.

Photo source: The Daily Star