Baku, Azerbaijan, May 17
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Some 100 gas flares will be put out in Iranian oilfields in the current year.
"The associated gas will be injected to oilfields or will be used to generate clean energy," Abbas Razmi, an official at the National Iranian Oil Company, said, Iran's IRNA news agency reported on May 17.
The Iranian solar year begins on March 20.
When petroleum crude oil is extracted and produced from onshore or offshore oil wells, raw natural gas associated with the oil is produced to the surface as well. Especially in areas of the world lacking pipelines and other gas transportation infrastructure, vast amounts of such associated gas are commonly flared as waste or unusable gas.
"To date, over 200 flares of a total 960 flares have been put out at oilfields," Razmi said.
Iran's flared gas level remains high, despite an order from the country's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei's order to put out flares in Dec. 2010 during his visit to the South Pars gas field.
According to the latest official statistics, Iran's total flared gas amount has remained unchanged since 2011 at about 40 million cubic meters per day.
An October 2013 report, produced under the World Bank Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR) put Iran in third place among nations in terms of flaring gas for 2011. New statistics are unavailable, but comparing GGFR's figures with Iran's latest statistics published in September 2013 indicates there has been no progress, according to the statement.
GGFR says 360 million tons of carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere totally by burning 140 bcm of flared gas in 2011.
"Iran has 40 projects to cut 40 mcm of gas flaring and is attempting to bring the burnt gas to a minimum level by 2015," deputy head of Iran Energy Efficiency Organization, Abdolreza Assadi said in September 2013.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration also reported in March 2013 that Iran's flared gas amount in 2011 was 0.6 trillion cubic feet, equal to about 45 million cubic meters of gas per day.
During this year, about 30 percent of Iran's total associated natural gas production was flared.