Lebanon is looking at laying a gas pipeline along its Mediterranean coast. As many as 19 foreign companies, including Russia’s Stroitransgaz have qualified for a would-be tender, Lebanese Minister of Energy and Water Gibran Bassil said.

The 174-kilometre gas mains will run from a heat power plant in Deir Ammar in northern Lebanon to the port city of Tyre. The project cost will total 360 million U.S. dollars. According to Bassil, the would-be pipeline will help cope with the fuel deficit, which is currently being covered by annual purchases of fuel oil to the overall sum of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars.

In 2012, gas will be pumped to Lebanon through the Arabian pipeline running from Egypt’s El Arish via Jordan and Syria. The minister also made public ambitious plans worth some five billion U.S. dollars to overhaul the country’s energy sector.

In 2011, Lebanon plans to hold a tender to develop prospective oil and gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea. The Lebanese government has urged the United Nations to demark the sea border with Israel, which has recently made a test drilling to a depth of 5,800 meters.

At a meeting with Stroitransgaz’ chairman of the board Sergei Makarov in December 2010, the Lebanese minister said his country was interested in cooperation with Russia in the construction of an oil and gas infrastructure, heat stations and other energy sector facilities.