Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 7
By Dalga Khatinoglu- Trend:
After several years, Iran resumed as a diesel exporter due to plunging gas oil usage in power plants.
According to Energy Ministry's latest weekly report, the diesel consumption in Iran's power plants decreased by 37.2 percent to 1.773 billion liters in 161 days of current fiscal year (March 21 to August 28).
Soaring gas deliveries to power plants by 11.4 percent during the mentioned time and 33.6 percent in last fiscal year created the opportunity for Iran to not only stop diesel import but become a diesel exporter.
Iran exports 34 million liters of diesel per month, Mehr News Agency reported.
Iran's diesel consumption in 2013 was 105.4 million liters per day, 8.4 percent more than the previous year, while the production level was 97.7 million liters per day.
During this year, some 12.1 billion liters (33 million liters per day) of diesel was consumed in power plants, 57 percent more than the previous year due to gas shortage, especially in winter.
During a fiscal year, corresponding to 2013, Iran consumed 96 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) of gas and 15.2 billion liters of fuel oil in power plants.
|
Date |
Iran diesel consumption
(million liters per day) |
Iran diesel consumption in power plants (million liters per day) |
Iran diesel production (million liters per day) |
Iran diesel imports (million liters per day) |
|
2000 |
66.7 |
3.4 |
69.9 |
0 |
|
2010 |
95.2 |
16 |
85.2 |
4.2 |
|
2011 |
96.75 |
25.3 |
94.7 |
0.5 |
|
2012 |
97.21 |
21 |
93.6 |
6.5 |
|
2013 |
105.4 |
33.1 |
97.7 |
6.1 |
Iran stopped diesel imports in 1998, but Iran became a net diesel importer in 2005 until early 2015. The country's diesel bunkering also reached 215,000 tons in 2013.
The transportation sector shared about 50 percent of Iran's total gas oil consumption in 2013, while power, industrial and agriculture sectors shared 29 percent, 7 percent and 10 percent.
Coming to the current fiscal year, Iran not only stopped gas oil import it renewed net gas exporting due to significant decrease in diesel usage in the power sector.
Iran increased raw gas production capacity by 100 mcm/d in 2014 to 660 mcm/d, while the same growth pace is expected for current year. Iran says it is preparing to increase the volume to 1,000 mcm/d by 2018.
Edited by CN
Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector, head of Trend Agency's Iran news service. Follow him on @dalgakhatinoglu