New strategy needed for Lebanon’s oil and gas

One of the key issues that Lebanon’s new government must address – and the list is long – is the two oil and gas-related decrees that have been collecting dust in the Council of Ministers (COM) for more than three years. Despite a relatively upbeat start, led by the Lebanese Petroleum Administration (LPA) in December 2012, the process of building a domestic oil and gas sector came to a halt once it reached the COM in mid-2013. Upon taking office, then-Prime Minister Tammam Salam established an inter-ministerial oil committee in April 2014 whose job, in retrospect, aimed to stall rather than lead the development of the sector. Beyond meetings with the LPA, the prime minister and the inter-ministerial committee failed to inform the public about what the body achieved, why the two decrees did not pass, and what plans are in place to move the sector forward. For there to