The oil ministry should allocate $4.7 billion to supply gas to all rural and urban regions, spokesperson of the government Mohammad-Bagher Nobakht said Wednesday.
Shana said the government's economy council has passed a new regulation requiring the oil ministry to supply gas to all underprivileged areas across the country that so far have been deprived of it.
All villages with population of 100 people or 20 households come under the cover of the new regulation. A variety of methods will be deployed by the ministry to supply gas to more than 2,36 million households. Details were not immediately available.
Currently 63 million people, or 84 percent of the population, have access to natural gas. The figure is expected to reach 71 million or 94.5 percent by March 2018, Hamidreza Araghi the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) said Monday.
More than 75 percent of Iran's energy needs are met through natural gas, the heating value of which equals approximately four million barrels of oil per day.
According to NIGC projections, $62.5 billion is required to process, transfer, and distribute 330 billion cubic meters of gas per annum by March 2018. Increasing the number of gas refining companies from 71 to 90, and gas supply pipelines from 35,000km to 40,000km are among the prerequisites of such projections.
The economic council also has stipulated investment of about $15 billion to increase oil production capacity/processing of an addition 550,000 barrels of oil per day. These investments are related to the North and South Azadegan, and South Yaran oilfields.
Iran has the world’s second biggest natural gas reserves after Russia, and the fourth-largest proved crude oil reserves. However, the vast majority of gas reserves are undeveloped.
