IRAN'S GAS PROJECTS $5.5 BLN

CASPIAN NEWS - August 24, 2020 - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has inaugurated three major gas projects worth over $5.5 billion on the occasion of the country’s Government Week.

The plan for the development and improvement of the gas dispatching center and the sixth and ninth national gas transmission lines, the first phase of Bushehr Petrochemicals and the 500 MW West Karun Combined Cycle Power Plant and its transmission lines and substation, were launched in a video conference on August 24, the official website of Rouhani reported.

The sixth national gas transmission pipeline whose length is about 1200 km and has a daily transmission capacity of 110 million cubic meters of gas, will transport gas from South Pars through the provinces of Bushehr, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Ilam and Kermanshah to Dehgolan city in the Kurdistan province.

Another project, the 125-km pipeline, is the ninth national gas transmission line with a capacity of 60 million cubic meters, which starts 32 km west of Behbahan and extends to the border of Bazargan and northern Maku.

The construction of these pipelines gives Iran an export advantage and plays an important role in energy exchanges with countries in the region, in addition to supplying gas to colder provinces in the country.

During the ceremony, Rouhani said that his administration has increased gas extraction from joint gas fields 2.5 times, while crude output from common oilfields has risen around 6 times.

Oil output at joint oilfields has increased from 70,000 to 400,000 barrels per day, while daily gas production has reached nearly 1 billion cubic meters from 600 million cubic meters a day.

"We have reached nearly 1 billion cubic meters in gas production from 600 million cubic meters a day,” Rouhani said. He added that, during his presidency, 17,000 villages in the country were connected to the national gas network and 89 power plants in the country were supplied with gas.

Rouhani also said that “all phases of South Pars have been opened except one and also that the country has become self-sufficient in petrol and diesel,” adding that "the next government will start when the petrochemicals have risen from 56 million tonnes to 100 million tonnes and from $11 billion to $25 billion."

Speaking on the government's plan to create a third leap in the oil and gas field, Rouhani said that "the government will make the second leap in the petrochemical field by the end of this period, and we have planned a third leap with an export value of $37 billion."

“Today, we export gas from the West of the country to Iraq and Turkey, and we can also export gas to Eastern countries,” the president said, adding, “we have laid the gas pipeline to the point of the Pakistani border.”

According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy for 2020, Iran’s proven reserves of natural gas are 32 trillion cubic meters. The South Pars/North Dome field shared between Iran and Qatar is the world's largest gas field, covering 3,700 square kilometers of Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.

In October 2019, Iranian officials announced the discovery of a natural gas field with about $40 billion worth of condensed gas. Called the Eram National Gas Field, it lies approximately 124 miles south of the southern Iranian city of Shiraz and is thought to hold up to 19 trillion cubic feet of gas.

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