Iran exported close to 4 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the first half of the current Iranian year (started March 20, 2016), dispatching manager of National Iranian Gas Company said on Tuesday.
“Iran’s gas exports in the past six months amounted to 3.92 billion cubic meters, which indicates a 3.4% rise compared with the same period of the previous year,” Mehdi Jamshidi-Dana was also quoted as saying by Shana. The volume equals an average of around 21.5 million cubic meters per day.
Alireza Kameli, managing director of National Iranian Gas Export Company, said last week Iran's natural gas export has reached 32 million cubic meters per day.
He added that outbound gas supplies are expected to increase significantly in the next few years.
Turkey receives the lion’s share of Iranian gas exports. Under a 25-year contract signed in 1996, Tehran should supply around 10 bmc/d of natural gas to Ankara per annum.
Hamidreza Araqi, NIGC’s managing director, said last month that gas supplies to Turkey reached 30 mcm per day and the infrastructure is available to increase this volume by 6 mcm per day.
Tehran is also said to be studying a swap proposal to deliver Turkmenistan's gas to Turkey.
According to Jamshidi, Iran’s gas imports dropped 25.1% in the six-month period compared to the similar period last year.
On gas injected into the country’s oilfields, he said that over the period, more than 6 billion cubic meters of sour gas were injected into Aghajari reservoirs in the oil-rich Khuzestan Province.
In addition, over 1 billion cubic meters of sweet gas have been injected into storage facilities of Shourijeh in Khorasan Razavi Province and Sarajeh near the city of Qom, 124 kilometers south of Tehran since March, a 17% rise compared with the same period of a year ago.
The official underscored that in the six-month span, 39 billion cubic meters of natural gas were delivered to Iranian power plants, 8.2% above the volume supplied in the corresponding period of last year. Earlier, Araqi said that a total of 57 bcm of gas were delivered to power plants in the past year, which is planned to reach 67 bcm in the current year.
As the development of South Pars—the world's largest gas field that Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf—has been put high on the industry’s agenda in the past three years, the output of which has met a significant rise over the period.
More than 102 bcm of gas were extracted in the past six months from the field, which shows a 9.1% growth compared with last year’s first half.
Iran is currently producing over 380 mcm/d of gas from South Pars. The output is planned to reach 500 mcm/d this year.
