Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 28
By Emil Ilgar – Trend:
Iran will boost its gas output to 1,260 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) by the end of the sixth five-year national development plan (March 2021), Hamidreza Araqi, managing director of National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), said.
Araqi said the country’s gas production was 400 mcm/d when the Rouhani administration came to power in August 2013, but the output is now around 600 mcm/d, ISNA reported on Sept. 28.
Iran’s policy is to increase the output to 1,000 mcm/d over the next four years, he said.
“This year, like in the last year, we will not face any gas shortages in the country,” he stressed.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Araqi said Iran holds a 1-percent share of the global gas trade and the figure should reach 10 percent.
Last year, Iran imported 9 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas from Turkmenistan and exported 8.4 bcm to Turkey.
Araqi emphasized the need to boost production at joint fields, saying that a lion’s share of production falls to Assalouyeh and the fields which are joint with Qatar (Sooth Pars field).
“We enjoy the world’s largest oil and gas reserves. However, we should prevent loss and dissipation of the reserves. So, if consumption of gas drops by only 10 percent and gas is used in production, this will generate huge added value,” he explained.