Iran's energy sector review

Iran is signing gas export deals throughout the Gulf as it gets its energy sector back on track after years of neglect. The latest deal, signed on Thursday, will see Iran export a small volume of CNG to Abu Dhabi from the port of Assaluyeh, via private companies rather than state-owned entities. The volumes are unknown, but Iranian energy expert Dalga Khatinoglu has said they will be small, as Iran has a total production capacity of 19 million cubic metres (MMcm) of CNG per day, which is expected to grow to 30 MMcm/d in the coming year. However, almost a quarter of private vehicles in the country rely on CNG for fuel, and that number is planned to rise to 35% by 2020, so Iran will not "have significant surplus" to export in the medium term. High domestic consumption and the $200 billion investment requirement to reboot Iran’s energy sector mean exports are a fraction of what they could be. But huge demand for energy in Oman, the UAE and Iraq make them prime – and e...

Regarding the six-fold deference between Iran's housing gas consumption in summer and winter which uses about 40 percent of the country's total gas consumption, Iran vitally needs to boost gas storage capacity. Iran consumed 91 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas in its housing sector last year, 2.1 bcm more than the previous year. The housing sector's gas consumption in some weeks of summer was a little more than 100 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) while in some weeks of winter it exceeded 650 mcm/d. Winter’s high consumption rate in the housing sector creates gas shortages that force the country to cut gas delivery to power plants and industrial sector as well as re-injecting to old oil fields dramatically. The country has two gas storage facilities, Shourijeh and Serajeh. Iran injected about 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas (bcm) to these storage facilities last summer and re-extracted 7.5 mcm/d during winter (1.021 bcm in total). Now, Manou...