Lebanon signs oil storage deal with Russia's Rosneft Lebanon has signed a deal with Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, to upgrade and operate storage installations in country's northern city of Tripoli

BEIRUT -- Lebanon has signed a deal with Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, to upgrade and operate storage installations in country's northern city of Tripoli.

Lebanon's outgoing energy minister, Cesar Abi Khalil, told reporters Friday that Rosneft will manage storage operations.

Abi Khalil says they will start with the development of 450,000 metric tons of capacity, likely to be expanded to 1.5 million metric tons in the future.

The facilities were built about 90 years ago and were used to store oil shipped through a pipeline from the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

Since the 1980s, they have been used to store diesel for local markets.

Abi Khalil says there are plans to rehabilitate the Kirkuk pipeline.