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Iran to halt supplying liquid fuel to power plants

Business Materials 21 December 2014 15:53 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 21

By Umid Niayesh - Trend:

Iran will halt providing its thermal power plants with liquid fuel as of next fiscal year (to start on March 21, 2015), Saeed Motasadi, deputy head of the country's Environment Protection Organization said.

The environment protection organization and the oil ministry have agreed that the power plants operate completely with gas instead of liquid fuel, Motasadi said, the official IRNA news agency reported Dec. 21.

He added that the rational gas consumption in the household sector will be the key factor to achieve the goal.

However, Motasadi did not explain the plans for decreasing the household gas consumption.

He said that the administration currently faces problems with supplying gas to the power plants, adding that the problem would be resolved next year.

The Islamic Republic faced severe gas shortages last winter. Besides cutting the gas supply to power plants, the Iranian government had to decrease gas delivery to petrochemical complexes, as well as several industrial sectors, including cement production plants.

The gas delivery to power plants has increased to 100-110 million cubic meters per day compared to 80 million cubic meters in the previous year, Motasadi said.

He added that the remaining fuel required for the power plants is being ensured with 40 million cubic meters of mazut and 10-15 million cubic meters of diesel oil.

Currently, about 400-500 million cubic meters of gas are being consumed by households, he added.

Iran holds 18 percent of the world's proven natural gas reserves, equal to 33.6 trillion cubic meters.

Umid Niayesh is Trend Agency's staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @UmidNiayesh

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