Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 20
By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:
Iran's domestic gas consumption stands at $100 billion per year, an official with the National Iranian Gas Company said on Nov.20.
"The country's annual gas consumption is around 160 billion cubic meters which equals to one billion barrels of oil," the ISNA News Agency quoted Naser Ebrahimi as saying.
"Gas accounts for 60 per cent of Iran's total energy consumption," he said.
Iran, which owns the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia, has been trying to enhance its gas production by increasing foreign and domestic investment, especially in its South Pars Gas Field.
The South Pars/North Dome gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share (South Pars), which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.
The country also holds the world's third-largest proven oil reserves.
The country's total in-place oil reserves have been estimated at more than 560 billion barrels, with about 140 billion barrels of extractable oil. Moreover, heavy and extra heavy varieties of crude oil account for roughly 70-100 billion barrels of the total reserves.