Nat'l Gas Supply for 93% of Households

Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said the number of household gas subscribers in the country has increased by over 4.56 million in the past four years.
"Close to 3.14 million subscribers from 107 small towns and 11,500 subscribers from rural areas have been added to the grid during the period," Zanganeh was also quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency. 
"Currently, over 99% of the urban population and 82% of village-dwellers are connected to the grid, accounting for 93% of the country's total population [excluding the underdeveloped provinces of Sistan-Baluchestan and Hormozgan]."
The oil minister noted that Sistan-Baluchestan's capital city of Zahedan has been connected to the gas network and plans to supply gas to several other cities of the province are on the agenda.
Zanganeh added that efforts are also underway to add 5,000 more villages with about 430,000 residents to the national grid with an investment of 3.7 trillion rials ($881 million).
Noting that a large proportion of the equipment to expand the national gas grid has been supplied by domestic producers, the official noted that deals worth 17 trillion rials ($4 billion) have been signed with Iranian contractors and manufacturers to carry out the mega-project.
Zanganeh said the plan has not been financed by the government's budget, but comes from resources earned from exporting liquid gas to foreign markets.