Baku, Azerbaijan, May 14
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran will expand its gas pipeline network by constructing additional 660 km of pipelines.
Alireza Gharibi, Managing Director of Iran's Gas Engineering and Development Company, said a number of gas pressure boost stations will be also inaugurated by the end of the year, Iran's IRIB reported on May 14.
Iran's calendar year starts on March 20.
On April 20, Deputy Director of National Iranian Gas Company, Abdolhossein Samari said Iran plans to increase its gas storage capacity by the end of the current year.
Iran sits on the world's largest natural gas reserves. The country's estimated reserves are around 33.6 trillion cubic meters or 18 per cent of the world's total proven gas reserves.
Reza Araqi and Abdolhosein Samari, managing director and deputy director of National Iranian Gas Company, have repeatedly put Iran's total gas refining capacity, including imported gas from Turkmenistan, at 600 million cubic meters per day. The figure also includes 7 million cubic meters of gas pumped each day from Iran's only active gas storage facility, Sarajeh, to the country' national gas network.
Iran is obliged to export 30 million cubic meters of gas per day to Turkey. However, the country has managed to export only 25 million cubic meters of gas per day to its western neighbor in the past few years.
So, not considering its gas swap with Azerbaijan and bartering Iranian gas with Armenian electricity, Tehran has only 575 million cubic meters of gas per day to meet its domestic demands.