TEHRAN – The managing director of National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) has said all of the country’s rural and urban population will have access to natural gas through the national gas network within the next two years, IRNA reported.

Speaking in a ceremony for the inauguration of a project for gas supply to three cities and 185 villages in northern Mazandaran Province on Thursday, Majid Chegeni said currently over 98 percent of the urban population, as well as 90 percent of the country’s rural population, have access to natural gas through the national network.

According to the official, currently, only a few cities and about 7,000 villages across the country have not been supplied with gas through the pipeline network.

“Currently, 1,260 cities and more than 35,000 villages in the country enjoy natural gas through the national network,” Chegeni said.

Back in July 2021, NIGC announced that over the past eight years some 400 trillion rials (about $1.45 billion) has been invested in the development of the national gas network in Iran.

The development of gas supply has been realized by using the resources provided from saving liquid fuel and also by increasing the country’s natural gas production capacity.

Earlier in April 2021, the former NIGC Head Hassan Montazer Torbati had said that 96 percent of the country’s population enjoy natural gas through pipelines.

Emphasizing the need to pay attention to the stability of the network, Montazer Torbati said: "Iran's 96 percent of population benefitting from natural gas is a unique statistic in the world."

“Now that everyone recognizes NIGC as a leading organization, our task is much heavier, because now with 96 percent of the country's population benefiting from gas, which is a unique statistic in the world, we should think more about network stability and processes and creation so that we will have a better and more dynamic organization”, the official further stressed.

EF/MA