Iran National Gas Demand Exceeds 650 mcm/d

EghtesadOnline: Gas consumption hit 657.8 million cubic meters on Saturday, slightly higher than on previous days, as households used more fuel because of the onset of cold weather.

News ID: ۷۸۱۲۹۳

14 January 2018

According to the National Iranian Gas Company’s statistics, residential and commercial sectors with higher demand burned over 414 million cubic meters on Dec. 30, Shana, the Oil Ministry’s official news agency, reported.

This is while power plants and major industries received 151 mcm and 92.5 mcm of gas respectively on that day.

Export of the clean fossil fuel stood at 41.8 million cubic meters on Saturday. Turkey and Iraq are the main customers of Iranian gas, according to Financial Tribune.

NIGC has reiterated that meeting domestic demand is prioritized over export. Iran faced an unexpected gas crisis at the beginning of the year, when Turkmenistan abruptly cut supplies to make Iran pay nine times the price of their gas contract. The country took in limited amounts of gas from Turkmenistan in the northeast to supply gas to northern regions straddling the Caspian Sea coast.

Officials say the same will not happen this year, as the country expedited the extension of pipelines carrying the fuel from its giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf to the north. The overhaul of South Pars facilities has impacted output. According to reports, at least eight South Pars refineries were taken offline for maintenance operations in the last few months while major repairs at phases 9 and 10 were underway at least through the end of September.

South Pars is being developed in 24 phases. Iran said it caught up with Qatar's rate of extraction from the joint field in April after the launch of five phases.

Iran produced over 155 billion cubic meters of gas from South Pars in the fiscal 2016-17.

The country is on pace to boost gas production to 1 billion cubic meters a day by March 2019, roughly the same time when all South Pars phases are planned to be up and running.