Thursday , 25 April 2024

Officials Warn of Looming Winter Gas Shortages

Iranwire- Tehran province could face a serious gas shortage over the winter months, the deputy governor for civil affairs has warned. In an announcement on Monday, Abdolreza Cheraghali said the province could be down by as much of 150 million cubic meters of natural gas, but “the necessary planning has been done for autumn and winter” to deal with any issues that arise.

The central province Isfahan could be in even direr straits during the cold months. According to Seyed Mostafa Alavi, CEO of Isfahan Gas Company, last year the province faced a gas shortage of about 15 million cubic meters a day during the peak consumption period.

The shortfall is expected to grow by 10 percent this year, chiefly due to renewed activity in the and industrial sectors; only about 20 percent of natural gas consumption in Isfahan province takes place in the home, while industry and power plants account for the rest. On some days, Alavi said, shortages could reach 25 million cubic meters.

Recently new Oil Minister Javad Owji also announced there could be country-wide daily shortages of 200 million cubic meters of gas in and February 2022.

This in turn could reduce the electricity supply. Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, a spokesman for Iran’s electricity industry, recently warned that restrictions on the supply of fuel to power plants would reduce their output, which accounts for 90 percent of Iran’s electricity.

Iran has one of the largest gas reserves in the world but lacks the facilities to extract it. The Islamic Republic has faced serious problems in meeting its own needs – and not wasting what resource it does have through gas flaring – and was recently ordered to pay a UAE company more than $600m for failing to deliver on a natural gas contract.

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