TEHRAN - Natural gas delivery to power plants stood at 182 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) during the week ended on 23 November, indicating a 3.3 mcm/d rise against the same period last year.

As Shana reported, rising gas delivery to power plants comes at a time when the average air temperature is lower than last year and several precipitation systems entered the country in November, with snowfall in some parts of the country.

At the same time, rising coverage of natural gas services for household and industrial sectors is continuously raising the volume of gas consumption in the country.

Despite rising gas consumption by the household sector, the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) has said that it considers gas delivery to power plants a priority. The household, business and small-scale industries consumed as much as 455 mcm/d of natural gas during the last week of the Iranian month of Aban, leading to November 21.

Back in July, the director of supply and distribution at the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC) said the company supplied 30 percent more fuel to the country’s power plants in the first 131 days of the current Iranian calendar year (started in late March) compared to the previous year.

“In the first 131 days of the current year (March 20 to July 28), a total of 5.953 billion liters of liquid fuel was delivered to power plants, which includes 3.223 billion liters of oil and gas and 2.7 billion liters of fuel oil,” Morteza Abedini said.

Referring to the holding of numerous coordination and planning meetings for power plant fuel supply with the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) and the Ministry of Energy, Abedini added: “Considering the current conditions and the increase in electricity consumption, with positive interaction with the National Iranian Gas Company, the Oil Ministry is trying to provide the fuel for power plants mostly from natural gas so that we can increase the volume of liquid fuel storage in power plants.”

Earlier in May, Head of the NIGC’s Dispatching Department Saeed Aghili said gas supply to the country’s power plants increased by 11 percent in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19) compared to the year before.

According to Aghili, the NIGC supplied 79 billion cubic meters of natural gas to the power plants across the country in the previous year.

He put the country’s total gas consumption in the previous year at 249 billion cubic meters, which was also 7.0 billion cubic meters more than the figure for a year earlier.

Based on the data released by the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), the company has also supplied more than $3.8 billion worth of liquid fuel for the power plants over the past 2.5 years.

As reported, during the mentioned period, 3.6 million liters of gas oil and 2.5 million liters of fuel oil were supplied to 110 power plants across the country.

EF/