Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 13
By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:
Iran power plants' fuel consumption has registered a new record in the ninth calendar month (which started on November 23), the managing director of National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC), Mostafa Kashkouli, said on Dec. 13, the ISNA News Agency reported.
"The country's power plants fuel (gas oil and kerosene) consumption has reached 135 million liters per day," he said.
"The average consumption of the plants was around 103 million liters in the mentioned period," Kashkouli added.
Currently Iran's power plants need 140-150 million cubic meters of gas per day, but with the gas shortage the country is facing, the power plants have turned to consuming gas oil or kerosene.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on Nov. 29 that the coming winter will be the hardest one in the country's history in term of gas shortage.
However, Zanganeh said that the Iranians will face no difficulty in the season, the IRNA News Agency reported.
Iran's domestic gas consumption has reached half a billion cubic meters per day.
The figure shows 9 to 10 per cent increase compare to the same period of time previous year.
The increasing demand from household has caused gas shortage in some parts of the country, the Mehr News Agency reported.
Iran's households and business units' consumption currently stands at 340-345 million cubic meters which is 15-20 percent more than the same period last year.
The Mehr News Agency previously reported that based on the data collected by Iran's Oil Ministry, the country needs over 700 million cubic meters of gas per day in the coming winter.
According to BP's latest yearly report, Iran's dried gas output is about 160 bcm, a little more than domestic consumption level.
Iran exported 7.5 bcm of gas to Turkey and imported 4.5 bcm gas from Turkmenistan in 2012, according to BP's report.
According to the latest report released by United States' Energy Information Administration (EIA), Iran's gross gas output in 2011 was around 224 billion cubic meters. Some 67 percent of the mentioned amount was turned into dry natural gas, while 16 percent was injected to the oil wells, and some 17 percent was burned.
The British Petroleum Company also said in its latest report that Iran's dry natural gas output in the previous year was around 160.5 billion cubic meters.
In general Iran's dry natural gas output plus the amount injected to the oil wells stand at 570 million cubic meters per day.
Iran's gas consumption in the warm months is low. So the country could have stored considerable amounts of gas in its storage facilities for the cold months. But currently just the Sarajeh gas storage facility with 3.3 billion cubic meters capacity is operational, which can only supply enough gas for 5 days of consumption at the mentioned rate.
Edited by C.N.