Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug.5
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran's power plants consumed 5.2 billion liters of fuel (gas oil and mazut) in the first 135 days of the current Iranian year, which began on March 21.
Fuel consumption decreased by 3 billion liters compared to the same period in the previous year, Iran's Shana news agency reported on August 5.
The decline in fuel consumption has been due to a rise in gas supply to the power plants.
Some 161 million cubic meters of gas has been supplied to the power plants on average during the mentioned period of time, showing a 35 percent rise year on year.
In the previous fiscal year, Irandelivered around 36 billion cubic meters of gas to its power plants and consumed around 28 billion liters of mazut and gas oil to generate electricity.
But the officials announced that they will increase gas delivery to power plants up to 42 billion cubic meters in the current year.
Iran has 75 power plants with the liquid gas reserves enough for 45 days. The power plants have the capacity to receive over 200 million cubic meters of gas per day, but due to gas shortage the country meets around 40 percent of the power plants' needs of liquid fuel.
The country holds 33.6 trillion cubic meters of proved gas reserves, sharing 18 percent of total global gas reserves which puts Iran in the top of the world's gas holders list. However, lacking technology and investment led to long-term delays in implementation of gas production projects.
Edited by CN