Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 22
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Over 569 million cubic meters of gas was consumed in Iran on Dec. 21, the Spokesman of National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) Majid Boujarzadeh said.
Boujarzadeh said that daily gas consumption of Iran's commercial and household sector during last day stood at 411 million cubic meters, the oil ministry's official SHANA news agency reported Dec. 22.
He added that the country's industrial units also burned 82 million cubic meters of gas on the same day.
Power plants' consumption stood at 76 million cubic meters in the mentioned day, the spokesman said.
The official further forecasted that the households' consumption will increase in next weeks due to temperature fall in the country's various cities.
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).
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.