Higher Oil Prices Caused Transfers to EDL to Double by February 2017
According to the Ministry of Finance, transfers to EDL doubled the first 2 months of 2017, compared to the same period last year, reaching LBP 309.07B ($250.02M).
This rise mainly resulted from the escalation in payments to fuel and oil gas suppliers KPC and Sonatrach, which reached $200.54M by February 2017. In fact, the volumes of imported fuel dropped by 6.7%, while that of gas oils increased by 20.9%. The overall yearly payments mirrored the bullish trend of global oil prices, noting that the average price of crude oil rose by a substantial 73.35% y-o-y in 2017 to $54.7/barrel by February 2017.
Furthermore, EDL’s contribution to the oil bill decreased to 2.5% in the first 2 months of 2017, down from its previous share of 9.8% in same period of 2016.
Out of the government’s primary expenditures, which reached $1.31B in the period Jan-Feb 2017, EDL transfers represented a share of 13.5% of the total compared to a share of 4.5% by February 2016.
Contribution of EDL in the Total Oil Bill by February
Source: MoF
