Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.13
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran may face a shortage of natural gas in winter, Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Hamid Reza Araqi said.
Araqi added that the supply of gas is dependent on cold weather and volume of consumption, Iran's ISNA news agency reported on October 13.
He added that 100 million cubic meters of natural gas was projected to be injected from the South Pars gas field to the national gas network in winter, but it many not be realized in full.
In addition to cutting the gas supply to power plants, which led to burning $30 billion of liquid fuels, the Iranian government had to decrease gas delivery to petrochemical plants from 1,236 million to 530 million cubic feet. This caused a drop in the petrochemical production by 7.5 million metric tons during the last fiscal year.
On the other hand, Iran cut gas supply to CNG production plants during the winter, which caused gasoline consumption to soar to about 70 million liters per day in average during last fiscal year.
Iran also had to cut gas re-injection to oilfields, supplying gas to several industrial sectors like cement plants, etc. during the last winter.