The National Iranian Gas Company is to invest $1.5 billion to complete the national gas grid in Sistan-Baluchestan Province, the managing director said.
“Infrastructure is more than 76% complete in the provincial capital Zahedan where 31,000 households have access to piped gas,” ILNA quoted Hassan Montazer Torbati as saying.
Work on pipelines and other installations is going on simultaneously in seven other cities in the province including Iranshahr, Zabol, Khash, Mohamadan, Bampur, Bazman and Delgan, he added.
Gas supply to Sistan rural areas in the province has started and so far seven villages have been connected to the national grid.
“So far, 82 factories and industrial units in the province have been linked to the gas network, and gas supply to 185 others has begun,” Montazer Torbati noted.
Sistan-Baluchestan is the second largest province but one of the poorest of the 31 provinces. It has a long coastline on the Sea of Oman, where Iran is seeking expansion of maritime and port infrastructure to facilitate regional trade.
Completion of the gas grid in the southeastern regions would be a great boost to businesses in the port of Chabahar, Iran’s largest ocean port that is being developed in partnership with India.
A 300 kilometer pipeline is being laid to link the port city to Iranshahr city in the center of Sistan-Baluchestan.
Chabahar City is officially designated as a free trade and industrial zone by the government. Iran, India and Afghanistan signed an agreement to develop Chabahar in 2016.
India sees Chabahar as a key to its plans to gain access to the landlocked Central Asian states and Afghanistan while bypassing Pakistan.
National Gas Grid
NIGC data show that 98% of the urban population will have access to piped gas by the end of the current fiscal year (March 2020). Close to 80% of the rural population is linked to the national gas distribution network including over 390,000 km of transmission and distribution pipelines.
Over 1,100 cities, 24,000 towns and 27,000 villages are linked to the expanding grid. According to plans, by the end of the year gas supply to 3,000 villages will be complete. Pipe laying has also started in the rugged mountain areas that have very cold winters.
The move is in line with the government's goal of linking all urban areas and 90% of the suburban population to the gas grid by 2022.
Iran holds the world’s second largest gas reserves after Russia. According to BP Statistical Review of World Energy, Iran holds as much as 34 trillion cubic meters of natural gas that is 18% of the world’s proven reserves. Iran’s daily gas output has reached 850 million cubic meters.
The country also is the world’s fourth largest gas consumer, which shows heavy reliance on hydrocarbons and inadequacy in developing clean energy at a faster pace. This is one issue that has created serious concern among environmentalists and economic experts.
Domestic gas consumption has been rising regularly, especially in the cold seasons when temperatures fall well below zero.
Gas consumption this spring shot up in the colder regions compared to last year. Total gas consumption in the first quarter of the year was around 513 million cubic meters a day, about 22% higher than last spring.
