Compressed natural gas consumption up until last week reached 24.4 million cubic meters per day, the deputy director of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company said.
This shows a 30% increase compared to last year and is due to the lower price of CNG compared to gasoline, which has encouraged many car owners to convert their gasoline-powered vehicles to compressed natural gas hybrids.
“In the past four months 26,000 vehicles switched to CNG hybrids and we have plans to further increase the number,” ISNA quoted Hamid Qassemi as saying.
Last November the state-owned NIORDC announced that subsidized gasoline would be sold for 13 cents a liter up to 60 liters per car per month. Additional purchases cost double. CNG prices remain unchanged.
One cubic meter of CNG is sold for 4,600 rials (3.5 cents), three times cheaper than gasoline. A liter of subsidized gasoline at the pump costs 15,000 rials (13 cents) and non-subsidized fuel 30,000 rials (26 cents).
Of the 19 million vehicles in Iran, five million plus have hybrid CNG engines and the share of CNG in total fuel consumption is 20%.
Iran is fifth in global CNG consumption with over 2,500 CNG stations. Boosting CNG share in the expanding energy mix can have multiple advantages, especially cutting healthcare bills due to the worsening air pollution and reducing demand for dirty fossil fuels that poison the environment and impose prohibitive health costs on families and the treasury
More than $2.4 billion was invested in the last decade to expand CNG use and contribute to the global effort to reduce Iran’s CO2 footprint and move to eco-friendly fuels.
The NIORDC has launched an initiative to convert 1.4 million gasoline-powered vehicles (pickup trucks, taxis and vans) to CNG hybrids.
Private firms are to manufacture 700,000 CNG tanks that will be sold to authorized conversion centers in the next calendar year that starts next week.
Iran is fifth in global CNG consumption with over 2,500 CNG stations in the country. Boosting CNG share in the expanding energy mix can have multiple advantages, especially cutting medical and healthcare bills due to the worsening air pollution and reducing demand for dirty fossil fuels that poison the air and impose prohibitive health costs on families and the treasury.
Gasoline Sales Slip
According to NIORDC data, unlike CNG, the consumption of gasoline has dropped to 67.6 million liters per day.
The decline that started when the fuel was rationed, intensified with the spread of the coronavirus in the past three weeks across Iran. The infectious disease has forced many people to self-quarantine at home.
Before the price hike, gasoline consumption was 110 million liters per day but plunged to 85 million liters in early February.
The virus, however, has not affected CNG sales, Qassemi said, noting that the major CNG consumers are taxis and pickups.
“Filling station attendants are obliged to fill up the cars and the stations are equipped with disposable gloves and disinfectants,” he added.
On Wednesday, health officials in Tehran confirmed 9,000 cases of infection with the new coronavirus, with 360 reported dead.
The novel virus has spread throughout the world since the first cases were detected in central China in December. So far, more than 115,000 people are infected globally and 4,200 are dead.
