Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 17 / Trend, A.Yusifzade /
Iran's gas production is expected to double and reach 1.3 billion cubic meters per day until 2016, FNA reported quoting Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Javad Oji as saying.
Oji said Iran's daily production of natural gas has reached 600 million cubic meters in the current Iranian calendar year, which started on March 21, 2010.
According to Oji, 13 gas refineries are currently operational in the country and the volume of Iranian recoverable gas reserves amounted to 33.1 billion cubic meters.
Oji, who is also the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), said earlier that natural gas is used in Iran's power plants and related industries, for injection into oil fields, at homes, and for export.
"Today, over 54 power plants in the country use gas to procure their fuel needs, and in summertime gas consumption of power plants hits 210 million cubic meters a day. Moreover, more than 33,000 major and non-major industries of the country use gas for their fuel needs", Oji said.
The country's network of gas pipelines has expanded to 33,000 kilometers, some 20,000 kilometers of which are part of inner city and rural networks, Oji added.
Roughly 9,300 Iranian villages now have access to gas, he said.
"Iran possesses the second largest gas reserves in the world. The country is the fourth producer and the third consumer of gas in the world. A large portion of this consumption is for home applications in winter," Oji said.
He put the cost of the production of one cubic meter of natural gas in Iran at about at $10 cents.