Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug.30/ Trend R.Zamanov/
Iran will not face a gas shortage in the upcoming winter, Deputy Oil Minister Javad Owji said.
"Iran is currently carrying out some maintenance projects in the national gas network in order to increase the network's stability," the Mehr News Agency quoted Owji as saying.
"Maintenance operations will be finished by the end of the Iranian month of Mehr (October 22)," he added.
He went on to note that by increasing gas delivery to the power plants, Iran has managed to boost its liquid fuel storage volume considerably.
"Currently 160-165 million cubic meters of gas per day is being delivered to the country's power plants," Owji said.
Iran's former oil minister Rostam Qasemi said in August that the South Pars gas field's phase 12 will start producing 50 million cubic meters of gas by the winter.
The previously mentioned amount of gas would be directly pumped into the country's national gas network.
South Pars is part of a wider gas field that is shared with Qatar. The larger field covers an area of 9700 square kilometres of which 3700 square kilometres are in Iran's territorial waters (South Pars) in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6000 square kilometres, referred to as the North Dome are in Qatar's territorial waters.
The Iranian gas field contains 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas which is about eight per cent of the world's reserves and more than 18 billion barrels of LNG resources.
Iran, which sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia , has been trying to enhance its gas production by increasing foreign and domestic investments, especially in its South Pars gas field.