Natural gas delivery to 123 thermal power plants reached 42 billion cubic meters from March to August -- up 5% compared to the same period last year, head of National Iranian Gas Company dispatching department said.
“Higher gas production and supply to power plants instead of diesel and mazut has helped curb the use of environmentally harmful liquefied fuels,” Mohammadreza Joulaee was quoted as saying by ISNA.
Thermal power stations receive close to 250 million cubic meters of gas a day that is normally cut by half in winter as consumption of households rises.
“An estimated 8 million liters of diesel/d and 15 million liters of mazut/d are used in power plants that are not yet connected to the gas grid, namely the Bandar Abbas facility in Hormozgan Province,” Joulaee said
Drawing parallels between consumption of liquefied fuels in 2013 and now, he noted that diesel and mazut use in power stations seven years ago was approximately 35 million liters/d and 40 million liters/d. Gas delivery to power plants was hardly 100 mcm a day in 2013.
“NIGC has increased production, especially from the giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf (700 million cubic meter per day).”
Substituting gas helped cut use of dirty fuels by at least 34 billion liters per annum. “If the gas grid was expanded in the last 7 years 170 billion liters of liquefied fuels would have been used in the two sectors.” Likewise, higher gas output curbed air pollution and increased foreign currency revenue.
According to Joulaee, air pollution is indeed a major concern but becomes more serious in the cold season due to temperature inversion and consumption of diesel and mazut increases in power plants. The government, however, is gradually substituting liquefied fuels with cleaner gas in thermal power plants. Iran has huge gas deposits and it is more cost-effective to use gas for power generation instead of liquid fuels.
LPG Output
“Boosting liquefied petroleum gas export is a priority for the NIGC,” the official reiterated and said LPG output is growing as more phases of the South Pars Gas Field come on stream.
“It is time to expand our footprint in overseas markets," he stressed, and added that Iran annually produces 10 million tons of LPG of which 2 million tons is supplied to deprived areas, namely Sistan-Baluchestan, Kermanshah and South Khorasan.
Gas export to Iraq and Turkey averaged 25 mcm/d in the 5-month period (March-August), down 38% compared to the same period in 2019 because export to Turkey was halted for 90 days (April-June) due to a pipeline explosion inside its territory.
An estimated 880 million cubic meters of gas will be injected into the Iran Gas Trunkline (IGAT) per day in winter (Dec 21 to March 20, 2021) to meet projected winter demand.
“Of the total (880 mcm/d), 650 mcm/d is expected to be used in the household sector up 30% compared to the present 500 mcm/d,”
NIGC reported earlier that the Covid-19 pandemic has raised natural gas consumption of households by 30 mcm/d in the past 10 months compared to a year ago.
“Close to 500 mcm of gas is used in this sector daily, which at the least is 30 mcm/d more than in 2019.”
South Pars is the world’s largest gas field shared between Iran and Qatar. Iran is developing the mega project in 24 phases. The field meets more than two-thirds (700 million cubic meters per day) of domestic demand.
