A lot has been made of the spike in fuel imports reported by Electricite du Liban (EdL) to the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in 2019 compared to 2018. Why are we importing 4x as much fuel? Or are we?
EdL & Minister @NadaBoustani issued a clarification saying that the figures reported to MoF don't represent the actual imports in a given year because sometimes EdL delays when it reports its imports to the customs officials (i.e., 2018 imports are reported in 2019). 
This has been noted in MOF Trade Bulletin before. For ex, EdL reported fuel imports spiked 5x between 2016 and 2017. In a 2018 Trade Bulletin, this spike no longer appears as the 2017 volume was retroactively allocated to 2011-2017. A footnote in Dec 2018 Trade Bulletin explains
Lets focus on the 2019 spike.Does EdL's clarification make sense?We have actual EdL fuel import data frm the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS).I compared the actual imports from CAS to the figures EdL reported to MoF & the adjustments noted in EdL's clarification letter.
The blue line is what EdL reported to MOF. Clearly a big spike in '19. However, in the EdL Clarification Letter, we're told that the spike is due to '18 imports being reported in 2019. If u adjust for that, u get the green/grey line, which lines up with the CAS actual import data
We look at cumulative data bc if EdL is lagging in its reporting of imports to MOF,the reported & actual figures shld eventually converge.The chart above shows that they do,IF we compare what EdL reports to MOF to total fuel imports by the MOE (which is for EdL AND other users).
That last part needs clarification but I think what MOF calls "EdL fuel imports" is actually imports by MOE for EdL & other users. Why does EdL lag in its reporting to MOF? Not sure.Why did we have to go thru these hoops to figure out what was happening? Lack of data transparency
What are the MOE and EdL actual annual fuel imports from 2017 to 2019? See CAS data below. Pretty much flat.
@AndyKhalil1 @lebfinance One last thing, the "Other Users" that MOE imports fuel for are the Tripoli&Zahrani storage installations. I couldn't find data on the fuel inventory & how/when it's used (by EdL presumably). Fuel inventory and its use by EdL is an important data point to have for transparency.
