Caretaker Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil Friday signed a contract allowing Russian oil company Rosneft to rehabilitate, expand and operate oil storage facilities in the northern port city of Tripoli.

The agreement allows Rosneft to take over the operation of the facilities for 20 years. The takeover will include a rehabilitation project, which will create 450,000 metric tons of storage facilities in its first phase, Abi Khalil said in a televised news conference.

“It would likely be expanded to 2 million or 1.5 million [metric tons] in the future,” he added.

Rosneft announced the agreement with Lebanon in a statement Thursday.

The company’s CEO Igor Sechin said, “We hope for further expansion of cooperation with Lebanon and for the implementation of other potential projects in the oil and gas sector in this country.”

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