Iran’s annual gas consumption up 1.25% in year to March: NIGC

A senior official at Iran’s state gas company the NIGC says natural gas consumption in the country rose 1.25% in the year to March 20 to reach a total of 242 billion cubic meters (bcm).

NIGC’s head of dispatching operations Mohammad Reza Julayi said on Monday that consumption by households, businesses and small industries was responsible for 123 bcm of natural gas use in Iran over the past calendar year.

Julayi said some 71 bcm of gas had been supplied to power plants across Iran over the year to late March while gas supplied to large industries, including metals and petrochemical companies, had reached 48 bcm.

He said Iran’s gas consumption over the second half of the last calendar year, when the country faced rising demand for heating, had reached over 132 bcm.

The official said, however, that Iran had managed to avoid any disruption to supply of gas to customers over the year to March mainly through better consumption management practices introduced by the National Iranian Gas Company.

The NIGC has not disclosed any figures about the total amount of gas supplied to Iran’s nationwide gas grid in the year to late March. That figure will includes supplies delivered to Iraq and Turkey for exports as well as the gas injected to oil and gas reserves for the purpose of increasing production from the wells.

That comes as figures announced by the Iranian Oil Ministry authorities earlier this year indicated that the country's gas production had exceeded 1 bcm per day.

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