Plans have been made to draw 20 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas per day from the Shourijeh storage facility starting from early November, if demand increases in the cold season, managing director of the Natural Gas Storage Company (NGSC) said, IRNA reported.
"Gas storage in the Shourijeh facility is well into development over the past few months," said Masoud Samivand. "Last year, 9-10 mcm of gas per day was extracted from the facility, and it has proved to be a reliable storage unit."
Shourijeh facility off Sarakhs city, near Mashhad is one of the country's main gas storage points, which helps to boost gas supplies in the northern and northeastern provinces during times of peak demand.
Gas storage points are normally located near cities with high consumption in order to immediately make up for a shortage of gas during peak demand. These facilities are also set to come on stream when gas distribution networks are down.
Shourijeh facility is seen as a reliable storage point due to its proximity to Tehran and the national gas pipeline.
It has the capacity to store 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas in its first phase and 3.3 billion cubic meters in the second.
Approximately 10 mcm of gas has been injected into the facility everyday in the past few months via three compressors, each with a capacity of 3.6 mcm.
The facility places Iran as the leader in the region in terms of gas storage and in fifth position in the world.
It is designed to supply gas to provinces of North Khorasan, Khorasan Razavi, Mazandaran, Gilan and Ardebil on the northern, northeastern and northwestern flanks.
According to the Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (March 2011-2016), 14 percent of the gas consumption across the country should come from the storage facilities.
