“All 21 cities or 100% of the urban population and some 490 villages in the province now have access to natural gas,” Energy Today quoted Ali Akbar Meidanshahi as saying.
Close to 555 kilometers of pipelines were laid in the province in 2018 and the grid stretches over 1,500 kilometers. It has reached the popular mountain regions resorts about 70 km from Yazd City.
According to the official, approximately 447,000 households have access to gas in the province, of which 22,500 subscribers were linked to the grid in the last fiscal (ended March 20), Financial Tribune reported.
Referring to the industries sector, he noted that 428 industrial units were linked to the grid. Moreover, 3,000 greenhouses and 285 brick factories are now using natural gas.
Yazd is one of Iran's known centers for textiles and is famous also for factories making ceramics and construction material.
Meidanshahi added that the network is equipped with 262 gas reducing and metering stations. The number of compressed natural gas stations in the province is 48.
Agricultural Exports
An estimated 420,000 tons of agricultural produce from greenhouses worth 10 trillion rials ($98 million) are exported from Yazd Province every year.
According to Yadollah Javadpour, an official with Yazd Agricultural Jihad Organization, Russia, Iraq and the Persian Gulf littoral states are the main destinations of agricultural products grown in the provincial greenhouses.
Javadpour went on to say that a range of products, including cucumbers, tomatoes, aubergines and medicinal plants, are cultivated in 1,550 hectares of greenhouses in Yazd.
Yazd has a hot desert climate. It is the driest major city in Iran, with a yearly precipitation of barely 49 millimeters and only 23 days of rainfall, which is also the hottest city north of the Persian Gulf coast, with summer temperatures frequently above 40 °C (104 °F) in blazing sunshine with no humidity.
Gas meets 70% of the country’s energy need and expanding the network is one of the declared goals of the government because it helps supply energy from refineries in remote regions to urban and rural areas.
Data released by the National Iranian Gas Company shows 260 billion cubic meters of gas can be supplied annually making Iran the fourth largest gas grid in the world after the US, Russia and Canada.