Iran retained its position as the world's third-largest gas producer in 2015 after the US and Russia, following a 5.7% rise in production compared to 2014, BP said in its annual report.
The 65th edition of the British Petroleum Statistical Review of World Energy, which was published on Friday, said Iran’s total gas output reached 192.5 billion cubic meters in 2015, some 10.5 billion more than its output in 2014, IRNA reported.
The Persian Gulf country had increased its annual gas output by 16 billion cubic meters in 2014.
Along with production growth, Iran’s gas consumption has also witnessed a marked rise of 6.2% year-on-year, which reduced net gas exports to less than 1 billion cubic meters in the period.
Iran imported 7.2 bcm of natural gas from Turkmenistan and exported 7.8 bcm to Turkey last year.
According to BP, Iran sits on the world's largest natural gas reserves.
With no change compared to 2014, Iran’s proved gas reserves in 2015 amounted to 34 billion cubic meters, about 18.2% of the world’s total reserves, followed by Russia (17.3%) and its Arab rival country Qatar (13.1%).
Global natural gas production grew by 2.2% in 2015, more rapidly than consumption but below its 10-year average of 2.4%. As with consumption, the US (5.4%) recorded the largest growth increment, with Iran and Norway (7.7%) also recording significant increases in production.
EU production fell sharply 8%, with the Netherlands (22.8%) recording the world’s largest decline. Large volumetric declines were also seen in Russia (1.5%) and Yemen (71.5%).
***Oil and Electricity
Iran ranked seventh globally in the production of oil with its output accounting for 4.2% of the world’s total production in 2015.
The US, as the biggest oil producer, had an output of 12.704 million barrels per day in the same year. Saudi Arabia and Russia were the second and third largest producers in the world with output reaching 12.014 mb/d and 10.98 mb/d respectively.
While Iran’s daily refining capacity currently stands at about two million barrels, the country has refined 1.847 million barrels of oil per day in the past year.
The nation’s consumption of electricity coming from hydroelectric plants met an increase of 0.8 million tons of oil equivalent, but its consumption of nuclear power reduced by 0.2 million tons of oil equivalent.
This is while the country’s coal consumption has reached 1 million tons of oil equivalent in 2015.
The BP report indicates that energy consumption of Iran in the last year increased by 2.5%, reaching over 267 million tons of oil equivalent.
Natural gas and crude oil accounted for 98% of the country’s energy consumption.
