Tehran, Iran, June 16
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
Some $1.2 billion has been allocated to feeding the country's industrial units with gas, Mahmoud Astaneh, consultant to Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, said.
He pointed out that last Iranian fiscal year (which ended March 20) the country's industrial units that did not use gas burnt over 3.7 billion liters of liquid fuel.
Astaneh said there is no limitation in distributing gas to cities, villages, or industries across Iran.
According to the official, right now there are 20,000 industrial units running on energy carriers other than gas. He said arrangements have been made to turn these units gas-powered.
In another part of his speech, Astaneh said that in the past four months, 250,000 households across the country have been connected to the gas distribution network.
During Iran 's last fiscal year, liquid fuels burning in the power sector also increased dramatically.
The country increased gas supply to power plants by 33.6 percent to about 49 billion cubic meters per annum (bcm/a) and decreased fuel oil and gasoline consumption by 32.6 percent to 28.1 million liters per day and 24.2 percent to 25.3 million liters per day in last fiscal year.
Iran is to increase natural gas delivery to power plants to 57 bcm in current year.
Iran reportedly increased gas production capacity by 100 mcm/d last year and wants to increase the volume at the same pace during the current year. However, Iran needs 70 bcm/a of gas delivery to thermal power plants to stop burning liquid fuels in this sector completely.
Edited by CN
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