Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec.14 /Trend, A.Yusifzade /
At present, fuel storage at the Iranian power plants dropped by 11 percent and reached 72 percent compared to the same period of last year, the Ministry of Energy reported.
Earlier, Alireza Zeighami, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), said that oil products inventories including fuel oil and gas oil have increased by 15-20 percent this year and the country faces no problem to meet demand for fuel in winter.
Zeighami said that the power plants' fuel storages are nearly full. He added that power plants are facing no problem to meet demand for fuel in winter due to oil products storages increased by NIORDC and power plants.
The official added that by increasing power plants' fuel storages for winter, there is a possibility to provide residential, commercial and industrial sectors with natural gas. He added that power plants would face no problem even if natural gas had not been delivered to them in winter.
Stressing the plans to increase the oil products storage over a five-year development plan (2010-2015), Zeighami pointed out that the country's increasing population had led to the increased consumption of oil products. So, building additional oil products storages is necessary for sustainable fuel delivery in winter.
Hosain Aghayan, the head of the department on provision and distribution of oil products at the NIOPDC, said that 3.705 billion liters of liquid fuels, including 1.670 billion liters of fuel oil and 2.035 billion liters of gas oil have been stored by Iranian power plants.
Totally 7.723 billion liters of liquid fuel have been delivered to the power plants since the beginning of the current Iranian year on March 21 including 4.5 billion liters of fuel oil and 3.673 billion liters of gas oil, Aghayan said.
The official estimated that fuel consumed by the power plants will rise up to 130 million liters per day during the peak consumption in winter.
He added that the fuel mix includes 30 million cubic meter of natural gas, 55 million liters of fuel oil and 45 million liters of gas oil.
The National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC) is in charge of providing liquid fuel for 65 Iranian power plants. Besides natural gas, Iranian power plants use fuel oil and gas oil to generate electricity.
Currently, roughly 56 power plants are linked to the national gas network. The government plans to increase gas delivery to these units to reduce import of oil products and consumption.