Close to 7 billion liters of liquid fuels will be burned in thermal power plants in winter, the spokesman of power industry said.
“Nearly 1.8 billion liters of diesel have been stored in thermal power stations’ fuel storage tanks and the rest [2.2 billion liters] must be transferred to facilities before the beginning of winter,” Mostafa Rajabi-Mashhadi was also quoted as saying by Barq News website.
The Energy Ministry is collaborating with the Oil Ministry to fill the liquid fuel storage tanks of power plants so that they can operate and generate electricity in the winter, he added.
Referring to mazut storage, the spokesman noted that estimates show around 3 billion liters of mazut are expected to burn in power stations between December and March.
“If the Oil Ministry fails to fill the storage tanks on time, power outages in winter will be inevitable as thermal power facilities will not be provided with adequate gas,” he said.
As natural gas consumption in the household sector soars in winter and surpasses 700 million cubic meters per day, power generation facilities cannot be supplied with enough fuel. Hence, they will have to burn about 7 billion liters of diesel and mazut for four months.
Natural gas deficit is estimated to be around 250 mcm per day that has to be compensated by burning liquid fuels.
“Iran’s natural gas use will reach 950 mcm per day in the winter when consumption of the domestic, commercial, industrial and power plants rises,” he said.
Of this amount, 750 million cubic meters of gas will be provided through 37 offshore platforms in the Persian Gulf and the South Pars Gas Field, which account for 70% of the country's gas output.
Stressing the supply of sufficient fuel in the cold months of the year, Rajabi-Mashhadi said, “We will have maximum gas production in the winter and liquid fuel will be used where needed.”
Not Economical
Stressing that the use of liquefied fuels is not economical for power plants, the spokesman noted that when power stations use liquid fuel instead of gas, their cost of repair increases.
“Gas has a lower price than liquid fuel. However, sometimes we are forced to use it instead of gas to prevent power outages,” he added.
Total gas production has reached 1 billion cubic meters per day, of which 300 mcm/d are generated by the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company that has three subsidiaries, namely West Oil and Gas Production Company, East Oil and Gas Production Company and South Zagros Oil and Gas Production Company.
Although most power stations in Iran use gas, close to 23 million liters of liquefied fuel, namely diesel and mazut, are also used in thermal plants (per day) that have limited access to gas, including Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan Province, Tabriz in East Azarbaijan Province and Arak in Markazi Province.
The supply of gas to power plants, instead of diesel and mazut, not only curbs air pollution but also helps increase revenue from exports.
The National Iranian Gas Company has managed to raise gas production, especially in the South Pars Gas Field, to meet demand from power plants. However, household use was so high last winter that gas delivery to power plants had to be cut by 60%.
Iran burns record amounts of natural gas, which is way higher than the global average. While average global gas consumption has risen by 1.65% in three decades, demand for fuel in Iran has shot up by 4.2% in the same period.
“Iran's gasoline and diesel storage capacity has reached 13 billion liters,” Akbar Nejad-Ali, the head of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, said.
“NIOPDC's storage facilities cover a wide geographical area, namely Neka in Mazandaran, Malayer in Hamedan, Rey in Tehran and Kharg Island, Asalouyeh, Mahshahr and Genaveh in Bushehr Province, and new units are under construction in Khuzestan and Hormozgan.”
Close to 91.5 billion liters of oil and derivatives, including liquefied petroleum gas, mazut, diesel and gasoline, are transferred annually across the nation via pipelines, vessels and tanker trucks.
Nejad-Ali noted that the length of NIOPDC's pipelines to transfer oil byproducts exceeds 14,000 kilometers, accounting for 36% of the total volume of oil byproduct transfer, adding that the state-run company’s fleet is equipped with 10,000 oil tanker trucks, 62 LPG road tankers and 10 oil tankers.
