TEHRAN – Head of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) Hassan Montazer Torbati said the cumulative gas supply to the country’s power plants in the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-July 21) has hit a new record high of 26 billion cubic meters.

According to Torbati, the figure has increased by about two billion cubic meters compared to the same period in the previous year, IRIB reported.

“The cumulative supply of gas to power plants was about 24 billion cubic meters in the previous year (1398)’s same period,” he said.

“In the year named by the Leader as the Year of "Surge in Production ", the National Iranian Gas Company has increased the supply of gas to power plants with the aim of reducing liquid fuel consumption and creating excess capacity for the export of oil products,” the official added.

He stated that despite the beginning of the overhaul period for the country’s gas refineries in the mentioned period of the year, an average of 210 million cubic meters of natural gas was delivered to the country's power plants with proper management of the production, transmission and distribution networks.

Torbati noted that the increase in gas consumption relatively decreases the use of other liquid fuels like gas oil.

“Every billion liters of oil and gas products is worth about $500 million in the global markets, so saving two billion cubic meters of gas supply to power plants means $1 billion in revenue from product exports,” he said.

Gas supply to power plants reaches its maximum level during the summer peak consumption period (the Q2 of the year) in Iran.

Currently, all the country’s gas and thermal power plants are connected to the national gas network, however, in the cold seasons, with the increase in gas consumption by the domestic sector the supply to the power plants will be reduced and replaced with liquefied fuel.

Earlier in May, Acting Director of Iranian Gas Transmission Company (IGTC) Mehdi Jamshidi Dana had said that during the peak consumption period in summer power plants would need 310 mcm of gas per day, a figure that could be easily met by the National Gas Company given its network capacity.

Iran is currently producing over 810 mcm of natural gas daily which is mostly used inside the country for the domestic sector and also as fuel for the power plants and a small portion is also exported to the neighboring countries like Iraq.

EF/MA