“During the period last year, 748 million cubic meters of gas was injected into the Sarajeh storage facility in Qom Province. This has increased by 8% this year to surpass 810 mcm,” Mehdi Jamshidi Dana was quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry news agency Shana.
“Gas inventory of the Shourijeh reservoir in Sarakhs County, Khorasan Razavi Province, was 938 mcm last year. Rising 48% this year, it has exceeded 1.38 billion cubic meters,” he said.
The increase should contribute to the stability of gas supply in the cold season when consumption rises to a great extent, the official noted.
As a routine procedure, gas is injected into the reservoirs in the first eight months of the Iranian calendar year and used in the last four months of each year.
Currently, Sarajeh and Shourijeh reservoirs in the center and northeast regions are the only natural gas storage facilities.
As the first natural gas storage facility in Iran and the Middle East, Sarajeh reservoir was officially inaugurated in January 2014. It supplies gas to six northern and northeastern provinces that are far from the southern gas-rich regions.
As a leading gas producer, Iran is expanding its underground gas storage (UGS) capacity with plans to increase the capacity of Sarajeh and Shourijeh.
Moreover, plans are underway to add five storage facilities to secure stable gas supply, especially in the cold season. Freezing temperatures in some regions fall to -15 degrees.
Iran Gas Engineering and Development Company is conducting technical research in five new areas, one of which is the Kashan salt dome in Isfahan Province.
Most oil reservoirs are not suitable for storing gas and this explains why research on other reserves, whose geological formations are made up of salt and water, is on the IGEDC agenda.
Constructing new gas reservoirs is a priority issue for the Oil Ministry.