The U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy C. Shea, met on Tuesday with the Lebanese Energy Minister, Walid Fayad.

After the meeting, Shea delivered the following statement:

“I'm Dorothy Shea, the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, and I'm very pleased to have had a meeting this afternoon with His Excellency the Minister of Energy and Water and the Director General of Electricité du Liban, Mr. Hayek.

And, jointly, we really feel that we're making very good progress on the regional energy deals that the United States has been keen to see move forward. We're trying to get humanitarian relief and real day-to-day relief for the Lebanese people, who have been suffering for far too long from energy shortages and electricity outages.

So we're pleased that today we were able to make further progress toward getting gas into Lebanon from Egypt and electricity into Lebanon from excess electricity on the Jordanian grid. We're very pleased with the progress that we're making and I'm thankful for the hard work that my counterparts have been engaging in.

Thank you very much.”