Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 1
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iranian crude oil exports fell 8.3 percent in the first quarter of the current Iranian fiscal year, which began March 21.
At the same time, natural gas consumption rose 7 percent in the 3-month period, the Central Bank of Iran reported in its Ravand publication.
Based on the report, oil exports, including crude oil and byproducts, amounted to 1.42 million barrels per day.
Meanwhile, natural gas exports reached 4.2 million cubic meters per day.
Further, single consignments of crude oil were sold at $60.7 per barrel, a 42.9 percent decline year-on-year.
Iran ranks fourth in the world, with oil reserves of 158 billion barrels, but first in gas reserves with 34 trillion cubic meters, which equals 240 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Iran produces 180 billion cubic meters of gas per annum (bcm/a), while its oil output capacity is about one billion barrels.
Domestically, Iran consumes 175 bcm/a of refined gas, which shares 67 percent of the country's total primary energy usage, while the figure for the consumed 600 million barrels of crude oil is about 25 percent.
Iran planned to double gas output to 1.2 bcm per day (bcm/d) by 2018. While this is considered a very ambitious plan in such a short time, it does not undermine the perspective of the country's upstream gas sector, noted observers.