BEIRUT- In remarks published in the Daily Star on Wednesday, Al-Mohammadi Ibrahim, the director of an Egyptian project to reconstruct the storage facilities at the Jiyyeh power plant, said that the first phase of this project was to be concluded by the end of May. The second phase of the project is expected to end on October 31. Works started in September. These facilities were destroyed during the summer 2006 war with Israel.

Al-Mohammadi Ibrahim told the English speaking newspaper that "More than 120 workers are now executing the reconstruction of five tanks as a grant offered by the Egyptian government to the Lebanese people. Three tanks are dedicated to fuel, each with a capacity of 25,000 cubic meters and two for water, each with a capacity of 5,000 cubic meters."

Israeli air strikes hit the Jiyyeh power plant, about 30 kilometers south of Beirut, in July 2006 and spilled some 15,000 tons of fuel oil into the sea, polluting about 150 kilometers of the country's coastline; this incident was described at the time as the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of Lebanon.