Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 2
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran's commercial and household gas consumption has increased by 34.95 percent year on year, Majid Boujarzadeh, a spokesman with the National Iranian Gas Company said.
Boujarzadeh said that daily gas consumption of Iran's commercial and household sector during current week averagely stood at 417 million cubic meters, the Islamic Republic's Mehr news agency reported Dec. 2.
He went on to note that the figure stood at 309 million cubic meters in the same period of the preceding year.
The official said that currently Iranian refineries' gas production capacity reaches 580 million cubic meters per day.
He added that currently 70 million cubic meters of gas per day is delivered to the industry sector.
Iran currently feeds thermal power plants with 85 million cubic meters of gas per day, two times more compared to same period of preceding year, Boujarzadeh said.
He underlined that the administration is preparing to supply winter gas demand, adding there is no cut in gas delivery to various sectors currently.
The Islamic Republic faced severe gas shortages last winter. In addition to cutting the gas supply to power plants, which led to burning $30 billion of liquid fuels, the Iranian government had to decrease gas delivery to petrochemical plants from 1,236 million to 530 million cubic feet.
That caused a drop in the petrochemical production by 7.5 million metric tons during the last fiscal year (ended on March 21).
Iran hopes that handle the possible gas shortage in winter via boosted imports from the neighboring Turkmenistan.
It should be noted that the Islamic Republic holds 33.6 trillion cubic meters of proved gas reserves, sharing 18 percent of total global gas reserves which puts the country in the top of the world's gas holders list.
However, lack of proper technology and investment led to long-term delays in implementation of gas production projects.
...