Over 4.56 trillion rials ($30 million) have been allocated to projects for supplying natural gas to 500 villages in the northern Mazandaran Province by the end of the current fiscal year (March 2019), a deputy oil minister said.
"Gas expansion projects are underway, upon the completion of which, the share of rural gas consumers in Mazandaran will rise from 92.5% to 95%," Mahmoud Astaneh was also quoted as saying by Shana.
The project will cover at least 10,000 rural households.
According to the official, over 70,000 households in the green province have been supplied with the fuel.
He added that projects to connect 10 towns close to 2,000 villages across the country to the national gas grid have been completed in the first half of the year ending Sept. 22.
Reportedly, more than 3,600 villages will join the grid by the end of the current fiscal year.
According to Saeed Momeni, the National Iranian Gas Company's director for gas supply, over 26,000 villages, constituting 73.6% of the country's rural areas, have been added to the grid since 2014.
The move follows the government's goal to join 99% of urban and 90% of suburban population to the gas network by 2020.
Over 1,117 cities, accounting for 96.9% of the country's urban areas, have been added to the gas grid during the same period.
According to NIGC, more than 22 million households in 1,106 cities and 24,260 towns are supplied with the fuel.
Pointing to rural residents' access to natural gas, Momeni said less than 55% of the population were connected to the grid in 2014, but the figure is set to increase to 90% by 2020.
"The Oil Ministry has taken steps to remove budgetary constraints to finance gas ventures across the country and replace natural gas with liquid fuels in household and industrial sectors," he said.
According to the official, close to 36,000 kilometers of high-pressure gas pipes have been laid in different parts of the country, which will be extended to 45,000 km by 2026.
"On average, 300 kilometers of the gas pipeline have been laid annually over the past four years," he said.
The country is expanding gas infrastructure, as it looks to raise daily gas production to 1.2 billion cubic meters by 2021 from the present 880 million cubic meters following the implementation of all phases in the giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf.
Iran sits atop 11% of oil and 18% of gas reserves in the world.
