The National Iranian Gas Company has carried out overhaul operations on 10 gas refineries since March, the head of production department at the state-run NIGC said.
“Of the total 16 gas refining complexes that produce 1 billion cubic meters of gas per day, 12 are situated in Asalouyeh, Bushehr Province, and the rest are scattered across the country,” Masoud Zardouyan was also quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry’s news portal.
Six more facilities have been shut down for maintenance and they are expected to become fully operational by November, he added.
The operations are aimed at ensuring sufficient gas is supplied to households, industries and power plants in winter when consumption is predicted to surpass 1.2 bcm/d.
According to Zardouyan, repairs have registered a work-in-progress rate of approximately 65% and will be over before the cold season.
New oil minister, Javad Owji, said although all refineries will be operating at full capacity in winter to produce 1 bcm of gas daily, NIGC will face a deficit of 200 million cubic meters unless people reduce their gas consumption.
“If households do not rethink their excessive consumption patterns, thermal power stations will not receive enough gas in which case they will have to burn polluting liquefied fuels like mazut and diesel,” he said.
“Power plants currently receive close to 200 mcm of gas per day and this is expected to decline to 50 mcm/d in winter, if households’ consumption exceeds 700 mcm/d.”
Power stations use 4 million liters of mazut and 18 million liters of diesel per day between March and August. These figure will rise to 18 million liters and 32 million liters per day in winter. As the National Iranian Oil Company cannot fully supply power plants, power outages will be inevitable, he added.
Largest Energy Consumer
Iran was ranked the world’s 11th largest energy consumer in 2019.
Based on Global Energy Statistical Yearbook 2020 data issued by Enerdata.net, the country of 82 million people used a total of 258,000 tons of oil equivalent in one year, ILNA reported.
The figure was 150,000 tons of oil equivalent in Turkey with the same population. Tons of oil equivalent (toe) is a unit of energy used to describe the energy content of all fuels, typically on a very large scale.
China, the US and India with 3.2 million toe, 2.2 million toe and 900,000 toe topped the list respectively.
Daily energy consumption of Iranian households equals the energy produced by burning 6.3 million barrels of oil (per day) that is nearly eight times that of the most energy-efficient countries like Turkey.
ILNA noted that Turkey does not offer energy subsidy and that’s why people are careful about its use, as consumers will have to pay higher tariffs for higher consumption.
A report by the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture says according to the International Energy Agency, Iran tops the global list when it comes to subsidizing energy.
In 2018, Iran’s subsidies for natural gas consumption reached $26 billion, for fossil-fuel electricity $16.58 billion and oil derivatives $26.57 billion.
The news agency noted that daily power output in Iran is around 800 million kilowatt hours, of which 20 million kWh are used by Tehran’s population of 10 million.
Home use accounts for 75% of the total daily consumption (20 million kWh).
Average daily natural gas consumption of 80 million cubic meters in Tehran is equivalent to the output of three phases of the giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf. The field’s total output is 700 mcm/d.
