Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 19 /Trend, A.Yusifzade/
For 155 days of this year (the year in Iran begins on March 21), the natural gas consumption by power plants in Iran averaged 156 million cubic meters per day, 50 million cubic meters per day more than the same period of last year, Deputy Minister of Oil Industry Alireza Zeygami said on Tuesday.
In the first half of October, the gas consumption by population, industry, commercial facilities and power plants in Iran totaled about 5.23 billion cubic meters compared to about 4.97 billion cubic meters during the same period of last year.
The Iranian National Gas Company supplies gas to 56 power plants.
According to Zeygami, Iran's black oil and gas oil reserves have increased by almost 20 percent as compared to last year. "Even in case of shortage in the supply of gas to power plants, the problems will not appear in the activities of these plants during the winter period," said the deputy minister.
Iran has completed 98 percent of the works on construction of storage tanks for gas oil for its use in power plants in the winter, said Zeygami.