2 IGAT Trunklines Inaugurated
EghtesadOnline: The sixth and ninth Iran Gas Trunklines (IGAT-6 and 9) were officially launched on Monday.
Over $3.6 billion has been invested on the two projects, about a third of which ($1.3 billion) was put up by private companies, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said at the inauguration ceremony, the Oil Ministry news portal reported.
IGAT is a series of nine large diameter pipelines built to supply gas from refineries in the south to across the country.
The 56-inch-diameter IGAT-9 is 1,863 km long. The pipeline extends from South Pars Gas Field onshore refineries in Asalouyeh, Bushehr Province, crosses Ahvaz and Behbahan in Khuzestan Province, Dehgolan in Kurdistan Province and reaches Bazargan border crossing in West Azarbaijan Province in the northwest.
It helps augment gas supply to cold cities in the western regions namely Miandoab, Mahabad, Khouy and Maku.
The pipeline carries 100 million cubic meters of natural gas per day to the northwestern regions bordering Turkey.
IGAT-6 transfers gas from South Pars to western regions namely Hamedan, Lorestan and Kermanshah provinces.
The 600 kilometer pipeline, built by domestic companies, helps stabilize supply to the western regions and boost export to Iraq. Five pressure boosting stations have been built along the route.
Iran exports gas to Iraq from Naftshahr in Kermanshah Province through a pipeline diverging from IGAT-6. It also exports to Turkey. Total export to the two neighbors is 50 million cubic meters per day.
Expansion of the IGAT helps increase exports as Iran can now export 80 mcm of gas a day, the minister said.
“Over 37,000 kilometers of high-pressure gas pipes are operating,” Zanganeh said, adding that about 95% of Iran’s 84 million population is connected to the national gas grid. Iran has 22.3 million gas subscribers. Transmission and distribution pipelines stretch over 390,000 km.
The country's daily gas output has surpassed 700 mcm and is projected to reach 1.2 billion cubic meters by 2025.
Increasing gas output is seen as crucial the number of subscribers increase every year and consumption keeps rising, especially during the cold season when temperatures fall drastically. Some northern regions have registered freezing temperatures (-15°C ) in recent years.