TEHRAN – Reproduction from Iran’s Sarajeh and Shourijeh underground gas storages (UGS) in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19) increased by 33 percent compared to its preceding year, Ahmad Rajabi, director of technical affairs at the National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC), told Shana.

Referring to the importance of the mentioned storages, Rajabi said: “the storages supply gas to six northern and northeastern provinces that are far from the southern gas-rich regions, this has eliminated the need for importing gas from Turkmenistan giving these UGSs a special and strategic position.”

According to the official during the previous year’s first eight months (March 21–November 22, 2019), a total of 869 million cubic meters of gas was injected into the Sarajeh storage in the central province of Qom and 1.449 billion cubic meters were stored into the Shourijeh storage in the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi.

Over 902 million cubic meters of gas were reproduced from the Sarajeh storage during the cold season, an increase of 17 percent over the preceding year. The Shourijeh storage also reproduced 1.722 billion cubic meters of gas, registering a 43-percent increase year on year.

As the first natural gas storage facility in Iran and the Middle East, Sarajeh storage facility was officially inaugurated in January 2014 near Qom, 124km south of Tehran.

As one of the world’s top gas producers, Iran is planning to expand its underground natural gas storage capacity to ensure that enough natural gas is available during peak demand periods to avoid electricity supply shortfalls in the future.

Back in November 2019, National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) announced that the company had awarded the development project of Shourijeh gas storage facility to an Iranian company based on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract.

In this regard, NIGC Head Hassan Montazer Torbati noted that following the development of the South Pars gas field and the increase in the country’s gas production capacity, construction and development of the country’s natural gas storage facilities has become a top priority.

Therefore, the capacity of the two storage facilities, Sarajeh and Shourijeh, is planned to increase to over seven billion cubic meters in the near future.

EF/MA