Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10
By Rahim Zamanov - Trend: Iran has stored 1.3 billion cubic meters of gas in Sarajeh gas storage facility, Iran's Natural Gas Storage Company's Managing Director Masoud Samivand said on Sunday.
"The stored gas will be pumped into the national gas network as of next month," the IRIB News Agency quoted Samivand as saying.
"Some 300 million cubic meters of gas had been pumped into the national gas network in last winter," he added.
Samivand said earlier this week that Iran will start injecting gas to the Shoorijeh gas storage facility in the next Iranian calendar year (to start March 21, 2014) , the Tasnim News Agency reported.
"The injection rate of Sarajeh gas storage facility has increased in the current year (which started March 21)," he said.
He went on to note that Iran has identified 40 potential gas storage sites.
According to former managing director of National Iranian Gas Company, Javad Owji, Shoorijeh is the Middle East's biggest gas storage facility.
"Iran will store extracted gas from the joint gas fields, especially the giant South Pars field, in the facility," he said.
"The facility has the capacity to store over 4 billion cubic meters of gas," he added.
Massoud Samivand said in June that once Shoorijeh gas storage project comes on stream, Iran will become needless of gas imports from northern neighbors.
"The Shoorijeh gas storage facility can provide sufficient gas to meet the consumption in the northern and eastern provinces of Khorsan Razavi, North Khorasan, South Khorasan, Mazandaran, Golestan, Gilan, amd Ardebil," he explained.
"The project will come on stream at the cost of two trillion rials (some 163.1 million dollars based on the official rate of USD and 66.6 million dollars based on the free market's price) which is 10 per cent less than the anticipated figure," Samivand added.
The Shoorijeh gas storage facility, located at the northeaster province of Khorasan Razavi, has the capacity to store 4.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
Shoorijeh gas storage facility has two phases and its injection capacity is 10 million cubic meters per day.
Once the gas storage facility comes on stream, Iran will rank as the world's fifth country in regards with largest gas storage capacity. The United States of America with 121 billion cubic meters ranks first in the list. Iran currently stands at the 19th place.