Baku, Azerbaijan, July 22
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) plans to establish five new gas storage facilities with the goal of boosting the country's gas storage capacity, said Abdolhossein Samari, the deputy director of NIGC.
Currently, the Nasrabad and the Yurtsha projects are underway, he said, adding that the Qezeltappeh project is also on the agenda, Iran's Shana news agency reported July 22.
"The Qezeltappeh project is of special importance. So, we prefer cooperating with Khazar Oil Company, which had previously worked on the project," he said.
The country has two gas storage facilities, Shourijeh and Serajeh. Samari went on to say that 543 million cubic meters of gas was injected to the Sarajeh facility, and 477 million cubic meters of gas was injected to the Shourijeh facility, in spring this year.
Iran injected about 15 million cubic meters of natural gas per day to these storage facilities in the last Iranian fiscal year, which ended on March 20, and has the capacity to increase the volume to 20 million cubic meters per day using the existing facilities, he noted.
Winter's high consumption rate in the housing sector creates gas shortages that force the country to cut gas delivery to power plants and industrial sector as well as re-injecting to old oil fields dramatically.
Manouchehr Taheri, director of the dispatching center of the NIGC, says that during this summer some 1.7 billion cubic meters and 2.5 bcm of gas will be injected to Sarajeh and Shourijeh respectively. Iran increased gas re-extraction from these facilities by 17 percent last year, compared to the previous year.
Edited by CN