TEHRAN – Iran’s daily natural gas consumption increased 28 percent in the week ended on Friday compared to the figure for its previous week due to the sudden decline in the temperature across the country, the spokesman of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) announced.

The daily natural gas consumption by households and the commercial sector reached 253 million cubic meters (mcm) over the past few days, while the figure stood at about 197 mcm last week, Mohammad Asgari told IRNA.

According to the official, gas consumption in the country exceed 600 million cubic meters last winter.

He further noted that despite the cold weather and the great surge in the consumption, gas supply to all areas across the country was uninterrupted and even Iran managed to fulfill all its export commitments and also supply an over 80 mcm of natural gas to the power plants on a daily basis.

In mid-February, Iran’s daily natural gas consumption had hit a record high of 600 mcm a day due to heavy snowfall across the country.

Iran is currently producing over 810 mcm of natural gas on a daily basis 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.

According to NIGC Managing Director Hasan Montazer Torbati, of the total produced gas, some 25 percent goes to household consumption, 37 percent is supplied to the power plants, 30 percent is used in the industry sector, four percent used as CNG and four percent is for other consumptions.

Currently, about 30,000 villages with 4.6 million households as well as 1,148 cities with over 18 million households are connected to the national gas network in Iran.

Back in January 2019, the NIGC’s managing director had announced that 93.6 percent of Iran’s population enjoys natural gas.

Gas is supplied to 97 percent of people in the urban areas and 82 percent of people in the rural regions, according to Hassan Montazer Torbati.

EF/MA