"The station will provide deprived areas in the county, namely Khur, Jandaq, Farrokhi, Anarak, Chupanan and Chah Malek, with the fuel," Seyyed Mostafa Alavi was also quoted as saying by Shana, the Oil Ministry's news portal.
According to the official, presently it is not possible to transfer natural gas from Iran Gas Trunkline (IGAT) to these regions, which explains why a CNG mother station with a capacity to transfer 10,000 cubic meters per hour was build at an estimated cost of $1.2 million.
Alavi noted that such stations are used to fill large volumes of CNG into mobile tube trailers, which is then transferred to daughter stations before it reaches the end users with a low pressure. A mother station will generally be located near a natural gas supply or a utility pipeline, according to Financial Tribune.
"Mobile storage allows transportation of natural gas to a site that does not have access to natural gas," he said, adding that typical applications where mother stations are used to supply gas include daughter stations, industrial gas users and gas distributors.
Daughter stations are installed where a CNG filling station is desired, but there is no natural gas supply. Gas is delivered to the station by mobile CNG fueling storage. A daughter station compressor increases the pressure from the trailer’s gas and transfers it to ground storage. "Operations to extend IGAT in the regions are underway," he said, adding that as soon as IGAT passes through the areas, supplying the fuel with mobile tube trailers will come to a halt and they will join the national gas grid.
According to Hamid Qasemi, the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company's director for CNG stations, the number of compressed natural gas stations in the country has reached 2,400.