Al Jazeera :
Talal leans against a car at a petrol station off Beirut’s bustling Hamra Street. It’s usually one of the busiest in the area. Over the summer, when Lebanon was beset by gasoline shortages, hoarding, and smuggling, anxious drives would queue for blocks, waiting for hours to partially top up their petrol tanks.
Now, there is plenty of gasoline to spare. The problem is, practically no one can afford it. “We used to top up around 200 cars every day, but today we’re topping up no more than 30 or 40 cars,” Talal told Al Jazeera. “They’re spending three-quarters of their salary just on fuel to go to and from work.”
Gasoline prices have climbed at an alarming rate in recent weeks. Refilling an entire tank for a standard car costs more than the country’s national minimum wage. Talal even stopped driving his motorcycle to save on gasoline.Others, though, are taking their grievances to the streets.
Public transportation drivers protested and blocked roads over the past couple of weeks, demanding higher wages and subsidised petrol and car parts. One of Lebanon’s public transportation unions threatened to shut down the country’s main highways in a so-called “day of rage” this week, but the union head cancelled it after meeting with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who promised to improve working conditions.
Until then, however, gasoline prices could climb even higher if the price of crude goes up, said George Brax, spokesperson for the Gas Station Owners’ Syndicate. But like many countries in the grips of the global energy crunch, Lebanon has domestic policies that are making a bad situation even worse.
“And now with the subsidies lifted on fuel, when the value of the dollar increases, then so will gasoline prices,” Brax told Al Jazeera.Until recently, Lebanon maintained expensive blanket subsidies on fuel, wheat, and medicines that cost about $7bn a year. Fuel subsidies accounted for about half of that outlay.
But the state simply could not afford to keep prices low for all Lebanese consumers, thanks to a festering economic crisis that has gutted the country’s foreign reserves.
In June the Lebanese government started to gradually lift subsidies on gasoline. To cushion the blow, it promised to roll out programmes to help the neediest families. But those financial lifelines have yet to materialise.
Now, consumers looking to fill up their tanks are at the mercy of market forces, including global oil prices and a local currency that has lost some 90 percent of its value against the United States dollar since 2019.
