On Friday, September 3, the Iranian Assistant Minister of Oil for Petrochemical Affairs, Behzad Mohammadi, warned of gas outages in cold seasons, and said that the interruption of gas in the petrochemical industry causes a decrease in production and reduces the country’s daily revenues by $20 million.
Mohammadi announced that the annual income of the petrochemical industry in Iran is $21 billion, of which $14.7 billion is from exports.
It is noteworthy that half of the petrochemical materials in the country are supplied by gas, and the petrochemical industry uses gas as fuel. In previous years, Iran faced a severe gas shortage during the winter season, but last year, the Iranian gas shortage started since the fall. In cold seasons, the government reduces the volume of gas supplies to petrochemicals, cement plants and power plants significantly.
According to the statistics of the Iranian Parliament Research Center, last year the government used 6 billion liters of highly polluting heating oil (mazut) in power plants due to gas shortage, which led to severe air pollution in urban areas. Last year, Iranian power plants also used about 11 billion liters of diesel.
The lack of gas in the cold seasons of the year is due to a 3-fold increase in domestic gas consumption for heating homes and buildings.
Last April, Mohammad Reza Goolaei, one of the directors of the National Iranian Gas Company, said that out of a total of 233 billion cubic meters of natural gas consumption last year, the domestic, commercial and non-main sectors used 122 billion cubic meters, while 122 billion cubic meters were used. Major industries 24 billion cubic meters, and 66 billion cubic meters of gas were allocated to power stations.
Source: Iran Intel
