Expanding the gas grid and supplying households with natural gas in the underprivileged provincial capital of Zahedan is on track, the head of Sistan-Baluchestan Province Gas Company said.
"Close to 450 kilometers of high-pressure gas pipes have been laid in Zahedan since 2012," Reza Panjabi was quoted as saying by Shana, the Oil Ministry's news agency.
The city needs a1.350 kilometer gas network, 1/3 of which is already in place.
Sistan-Baluchestan is the only region in Iran which is not linked to the national gas grid, according to published reports.
"More than 15,000 households have been added to the natural gas grid in Zahedan since last year," he said, adding that the figure is expected to reach 26,000 by March. Zahedan has a population of more than 650,000 in 130,000 families, according to a 2016 census.
Panjabi noted that $2.5 billion is needed for supplying all 700,000 households in the province with natural gas, which has not yet been approved by the government.
President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated a gas pipeline project in Zahedan in 2017 that stretches 262 km from Iranshahr County to Zahedan bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The pipeline is an extension of the Iran Gas Trunkline 7 (IGAT-7) that stretches over 900 km between Asalouyeh, Bushehr Province, and Iranshahr in Sistan-Baluchestan Province.
According to Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the number of household gas subscribers in the country has increased by over 4.5 million in the past four years.
Close to 3.14 million subscribers from 107 small towns and 11,500 subscribers in rural areas have been added to the grid during the period, he said.
He said less than 55% of the population in rural areas was connected to the grid in 2014. Since then the figure has improved with new gas connections and plans are underway to increase it to 90% by 2020, the news agency quoted him as saying.
