Oil

The Lebanese energy companies Liquigas and Coral, owned by the Christian Yamin brothers, is being used by the Hezbollah terror organization to control Lebanon’s energy market, the Alma Research and Education Center has found.

The Yamin brothers, Oscar, Edgar, and Antonio, originally from the southern Christian neighborhood in the town of Zgharta in northern Lebanon, control the Liquigroup holding company that consolidates their business. The holding company unites a number of companies, the most prominent of which are the energy companies Liquigas and Coral.

Based on the findings collected by Alma, it appears that the Yamin brothers and the companies under their control act on behalf of Hezbollah’s interests in the Lebanese energy market.

Among other things, the holding company appears to be assisting Hezbollah in smuggling fuel into Syria while bypassing international sanctions.

In addition, Liquigas and Coral, and particularly Oscar Yamin, the strongest member of the family, are involved in corruption.

Based on various indications, Alma has found that the two companies frequently transfer fuel from Lebanon to Syria with the full knowledge of the Lebanese government and under Hezbollah’s sponsorship. An estimated three million liters of fuel pass through illegal Hezbollah- controlled crossings into Syria from the Beqaa Valley.

Moreover, much of the fuel purchased for the Lebanese electric company and for general use in Lebanon is transferred into Syria on a daily basis. It is estimated that about 90% of the fuel that Liquigas and Coral import reaches Syria.

Liquigas and Coral transport fuel to and from the Al Amana gas company stations. Al Amana has been under US sanctions since February 2020 due to its ties to Hezbollah. The company has dozens of gas stations, mainly in the Shi’ite areas of Lebanon. In the Dahiya, Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut, there are several Al Amana gas stations.

In Alma’s assessment, it is likely that Coral serves as a “business shield” for Al Amana to circumvent international sanctions, thus allowing Al Amana to continue its activities under Hezbollah’s patronage for the benefit of its economic interests.

In May 2020, Ali Ibrahim, a financial prosecutor in Lebanon, accused Liquigas and Coral along with eight other prominent companies in the Lebanese fuel sector of plundering Lebanese public funds for years. They were accused of money laundering and the creation of a kind of cartel, with the consent of successive Lebanese governments, taking advantage of customs breaches to which the Lebanese government has turned a blind eye.

In the same month, it was reported that Gebran Bassil, Lebanese President Michel Aoun’s son-in-law, former Lebanese foreign minister and currently Chairman of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Hezbollah political ally, acted in favor of Oscar Yamin in the Lebanese fuel market, including an attempt to remove competing companies from the Lebanese fuel market. Bassil, who served as energy minister until 2014, was accused by Prime Minister Saad Hariri of being a failed minister and causing a loss of $42 billion during his tenure in the Energy Ministry.

It has also been claimed that Oscar Yamin bribed officials from the General Security Apparatus through Eli Haddad, who worked as a clerk at Liquigas, to skew the results of fuel quality tests, among other things.

The Yamin family has controlled Liquigas since 2005, and in 2016 bought Coral Oil. According to the company’s website, Liquigas and Coral together make up about a third of the Lebanese fuel market, and apparently, together they have a kind of monopoly on the Lebanese fuel market.

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The crude oil tanker that polluted Israel’s shores last month is Libyan-owned and illegally carried cargo from Iran to Syria, Minister of Environmental Protection Gila Gamliel said, while vowing to “bring the environmental criminal who polluted the shores of our country to justice, and demand compensation on behalf of all Israeli citizens.”

The crude oil tanker that caused the pollution of the majority of Israel’s shores is named Emerald and Libyan owned and operated, and was carrying cargo in a pirated manner from Iran to Syria. The ship flies the Panamanian flag.

“Iran is waging terrorism not only by trying to arm itself with nuclear weapons or to establish itself on our borders. Iran is waging terrorism by harming the environment,” Gamliel claimed.

“Together, we will consider the person responsible for environmental terrorism who committed a crime against humanity,” she asserted.

The identification of the polluting vessel followed an intensive investigation led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s marine unit in the past two weeks, with the assistance of partners from Israel and international bodies.

The Ministry noted that no Israeli source had advance information about the spill and suspicious stain that led to the incident, which was first discovered only with the landing of the lumps of tar on Israel’s shores on February 17.

170 of 190 km of Israel’s coast were covered with tar and damaged in an ecological disaster last weekend, the worst environmental disaster in Israel in decades.

Solid and semi-solid tar from an unknown source covered the majority of Israel’s beaches. It is estimated that a ship dumped hundreds of tons of tar that was brought over to the beaches by the massive winter storm.

Dead marine animals have been washing up on Israel’s beaches, including a 17-meter baby fin whale.

The investigation showed that the Emerald tanker is old, about 19 years old, and therefore cannot be received at European or US ports. It carries 112,000 tons of crude oil. The tar spill incident occurred between the 1st and February 2, within tens of kilometers of the shores of Israel, in Israel’s economic waters.

European satellites found retrospective documentation of a stain on February 5, which could be associated with the spill.

Laboratory tests of the samples taken by the Ministry of Environmental Protection determined that was pollution was crude oil, and therefore the list of potential suspects was reduced from about 35 ships to four tanker. Two tankers were excluded due to their location in the days before the incident. Another tanker was inspected in Spain by a local team as well as in Greece by the Israeli investigation team and was ruled out as a source of contamination, and the fourth tanker, now in Iran, was the one identified as the cause of the incident.

Analysis of satellite images and models run by researchers from the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the staff of the Institute for Marine and Lake Research and the staff of the Israeli company Windward show that the ship was smuggling crude oil from Iran to Syria.

The tanker left Iran region when it was “dark”, without an AIS system (automatic positioning system). Before the Suez Canal, she turned on the devices, crossed the canal in the Egyptian area, and before entering Israel’s economic waters, turned off the system again.

Between February 1-2, it polluted Israel’s economic waters while in motion and with devices turned off, and when it reached the Syrian region, it re-turned on the devices. Between February 3 and 14, it unloaded all the crude oil it had on other vessels in the Syrian region.

The ship returned to Iran again in the same way of darkening the instruments in Israel’s economic waters, until it reached a port in Iran, where it is currently anchored.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection, together with the Shipping and Ports Authority, will ensure that the State of Israel demands compensation from the International Fund (IOPC 1992) and also addresses the insurers of the Emerald tanker.

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