Iran's energy sector review

Iran has had one of the most accelerating energy consumption rates in the world, despite very slow economy growth during last decade, but what is the reason? A statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy says Iran consumed almost 244 million tons oil equivalent (OE) of primary energy in 2013. Of course, the U.S. energy Information Administration's (EIA) report, released June 19 covers the figures until 2013, but the official Iranian statistics indicate that the country's primary energy consumption exceeded 270 million tons OE (or 2 billion barrels OE) until March 2015. Natural gas and oil accounted for almost all (98%) of Iran's total primary energy consumption, with marginal contributions from hydropower, coal, nuclear, and non-hydro renewables. The EIA says that Iran's primary energy consumption has grown by almost 50% since 2004. Iran's power sector IEA says Iran generated almost 224 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh - unit for...

A month after Iran's parliament got involved in a investigation case over $5.3 billion of blocked oil assets in the United Arab Emirates, a top official says new blocked assets in the UAE were revealed to be worth $35 billion. The strangest issue is that Iran doesn't know whether the blocked assets still remain or not. Akbar Torkan, a senior advisor to Iran 's President Hassan Rouhani, announced on June 16 that an outstanding debt of $35 billion has been discovered and a lawmaker announced on June 18 that traces of this amount was found in the UAE. Torkan said the sum is part of the previous administration’s debts to the Central Bank of Iran and the facility was credited to NICO, an affiliate of the National Iranian Oil Company. NICO (Naftiran Intertrade Company) is a Swiss-based Iranian company. It is a general contractor for the oil and gas industry and buys the vast majority of Iran 's gasoline imports. It is a key player in Iran 's energy sector. ...

Iran's gas condensate export experienced a huge increase last month, but the overall export volume decreased by 20 percent during first two months of Iran's fiscal year. Iran's fiscal year starts on March 20. The country exported about 4.913 million metric tons of the gas condensate during last month, or more than 1.331 million barrels per day (mb/d) during a period from April 21 to May 22. This is the highest level in Iran's gas condensate export in history. Exporting above 1.3 mb/d of ultra-light oil during last month was reported while according to Reuters estimations, Iran has exported below 1.2 million barrels of oil to Asian countries in April. Iran also exports less than 0.1 mb/d of oil to Turkey. The following tables, reported by Reuters on May 29 show Asia's Iran crude imports in bpd for April and the year to date: Country Apr-15 Apr-14 yr/yr pct China 707,400 799,865 -11.6 India 264,100 224,800 17.5 Japan 68...

Iran and Oman eventually on May 26 agreed to demarcate the stretch of their maritime borders. Excluding the tension between Iran and the United Arab Emirates over three islands in the Persian Gulf, namely Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb, Iran’s maritime borders across the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman are absolutely defined. Iran and Saudi Arabia have already settled their maritime borders in the late 70s. Iran has no dispute with other Arab nations over maritime borders. Iran and Oman share 450 kilometers of maritime borders. Aside from the issue of shipping and the possibility of emerging land disputes in the upcoming years, the issue of owning seep sea energy resources is of high importance for the two countries, particularly taking into account that Iran and Oman have joint borders both in the Persian Gulf and in the Gulf of Oman. A map of Iran’s oil and gas fields, published by the Iranian Oil Ministry, shows that the two countries share just an oil-gas field...

Iran stopped allocating 60 liters of gasoline a month for private cars, saying that gasoline was eliminated entirely from its subsidized energy basket. The limited subsidized gasoline price was 22 cents. There is about 2.1 billion liters of unused subsidized gasoline, while Oil Ministry warned that quota cards would expire on September 22. Currently a liter of gasoline is sold at about 30 cents, while the premium gasoline price increased by 3 cents to 36.3 cents. The gasoline price in Iran is still less than regional prices. Iran started elimination of energy subsides gradually in 2010, when the price of a liter of gasoline was ten times less than it is now. Iran has increased the energy prices since late 2010 in two steps, but with a huge devaluation in the national currency (rial) the prices are still very low. For instance a cubic meter of natural gas was sold for about 100 rials to the Iranian housing sector in 2010 while a US dollar was 10,000 rials, while currently...

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...