Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 29
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran saved $6 billion by supplying gas to power plants instead of liquid fuel in the past Iranian fiscal year, which ended on March 20, said Hamid Reza Araqi, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company.
He said 50 billion cubic meters of gas were supplied to the country's power plants last year, Iran's Shana news agency reported on March 29.
The volume of gas which was supplied to the power plants increased by 15 billion cubic meters compared to its preceding year, he noted.
Iran has reduced the supply of liquid fuel to power plants as it plans to replace liquid fuel with natural gas. The supply of liquid fuel to power plants was decreased by 1.8 billion liters in the past Iranian fiscal year.
During a few weeks of last winter, Iran's housing gas consumption reached about 500 mcm per day, which led to gas shortage that cut gas delivery to power plants, petrochemical units, gas injection to old oil fields and the industrial sector.
Cutting gas supplies to power plants led them to burn $30 billion of liquid fuels. The Iranian government had to decrease gas delivery to petrochemical plants from 35 mcm per day in summer to 15 mcm per day in winter. This caused a drop in the petrochemical production by 7.5 million tons during the last fiscal year (started on March 21).
Iran holds 33.6 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves, sharing 18 percent of total global gas reserves, which puts the country on the top of the world's gas holders list.
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