Iran's energy sector review

Iran increased nominal power generation capacity by 3% to around 78.9 GW during last fiscal year, ended on March 20, the statistics of Energy Ministry’s annual report indicate. The mentioned figure is nominal power generation, but the actual capacity stood at below 68.5 GW, which demonstrate that the country’s power plants suffer seriously from aging and exhaustion. During the last year Iran fulfilled only a half of the power generation growth plan, especially its renewable power projects are far behalf of plan. Iran needs at least 5 percent growth annually to avoid power outage in summers, when the electricity demand soars. The country added only 100MW to renewables last year, while it had planned to install 690 MW. Currently the renewables account for less than 0.5 percent of Iran’s total power generation capacity. Iran has planned to increase renewables by 5GW during 2016-2021, but currently the volume stands at 364MW in total and most of that was installed before 2016. ...

Iran’s petrochemical exports increased both in value and volume during the last Iranian fiscal year ending March 20, but the plants continue working with significant idle capacity, though the gap between nominal capacity and actual production has been narrowing. The National Petrochemical Company (NPC) released its annual report on April 22, saying that export of petrochemical products increased by about 10 percent in volume and 26 percent in value during last fiscal year. The significant difference between value and volume growth is due to rising oil and petrochemical prices. A 25 percent rise in world oil prices pushed petrochemical prices higher. The overall production also increased by 6 percent to 53.629 million metric tons (mt) last year. However, the figure is 2 million mt less than the projected plan for the year. On the other hand, about 16 percent of petrochemical production capacity remained idle. Source: NPC's Annual Report Unit:Million Metric Tons Until ...

The Iranian government has proposed to increase the gasoline price by 50% to 15,000 rials per liter (around 43 US cents or $1.62 per US gallon) in the budget bill for next fiscal year, starting on March 21. The price of diesel is also set to increase by 33% to 4,000 rials per liter, or 10 cents per liter or 38 cents per gallon. According to a report published on December 19, on the official government website, the rise in fuel prices would add $4.8 billion to the government’s revenues next year to help it invest in job creation, to reduce Iran’s high unemployment rate. The report also says raising fuel prices to a more realistic level will reduce gasoline and diesel smuggling to neighboring countries, where the prices are much higher. The fuel price hike will come into force once the parliament and the Guardian Council approve it. Fuel prices, like many other necessities, have been heavily subsidized in the Islamic Republic’s closed and controlled economy. Also, hundreds of...

Iran has prioritized seven major oil fields for development - in West Karoon Block and South Pars gas field’s oil layer. During the first seven months of 2017, Iran launched Azar field and South Pars’ oil layer, while the statistics, prepared by Iran’s Oil Ministry and seen by Trend, indicate, that the other five fields, placed in West Kroob Block were also in development. Currently, Iran produces 20-25 thousand barrels per day from the oil layer of South Pars, while the production level at Azar field reached 15,000 b/d. Iran plans to double the oil output of South Pars and increase the Azar’s output to 65,000 b/d. Azar field, whith 2.5 billion barrels of in-situ oil reserves, and 16 percent recovery rate has been completed by 69.92 percent in July, compared to 68.52 percent in June. One of the major projects in Iran’s upstream oil sector includes the first phase of five fields (West Karoon Block) in Iranian western regions with 66.7 billion barrels of in-situ oil reserves, jo...

Iran has prioritized seven major oil fields for development - in West Karoon Block and South Pars gas field’s oil layer. During the first seven months of 2017, Iran launched Azar field and South Pars’ oil layer, while the statistics, prepared by Iran’s Oil Ministry and seen by Trend, indicate, that the other five fields, placed in West Kroob Block were also in development. Currently, Iran produces 20-25 thousand barrels per day from the oil layer of South Pars, while the production level at Azar field reached 15,000 b/d. Iran plans to double the oil output of South Pars and increase the Azar’s output to 65,000 b/d. Azar field, whith 2.5 billion barrels of in-situ oil reserves, and 16 percent recovery rate has been completed by 69.92 percent in July, compared to 68.52 percent in June. One of the major projects in Iran’s upstream oil sector includes the first phase of five fields (West Karoon Block) in Iranian western regions with 66.7 billion barrels of in-situ oil reserves, jo...

The energy intensity in Iran is four times more than global average, Deputy Head of the Iran Power Generation and Transmission Company (TAVANIR) Mahmoud Reza Haghifam said, Aug. 14. He also mentioned that peak demand of power in Iran increased by 7 percent during the current fiscal year, Tasnim reported. Measured as energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP), Iranian energy intensity is very high, which was led to vast energy waste and inappropriate consumption due to high governmental subsidies. Iran ranks first in the allocation of the fossil-fuel subsidies ($60 billion in 2016) in the world, according to the International Energy Agency. According to official statistics, energy intensity in Iran increased significantly during last decades, while the statistics of the US Energy Information Administration indicate that the index in the world decreased by nearly one-third between 1990 and 2015. Iran had allocated $13.556 billion worth of subsidies to electric...

The pace of Iran’s power export growth is decreasing as the warm season pushed the domestic demand up. According to the latest weekly statistics, published by Iran's Energy Ministry, the country’s cumulative electricity exports increased during the three months of spring by 143%, 330% and 85% respectively to 2.363 terawatt-hours (TWh) at the end of season. However, the warm weather has slowed down the power export. Iran’s power demand increases in summer, mostly due to rising consumption in housing sector. Fiscal year, started March 21 Cumulative Exports Change Yearly Cumulative imports Change Yearly Cumulative generation 1st month 491 143% 379 -23% 22327 2nd month 1293 330% 741 -16% 45509 3rd month 2363 85% 1203 -8% 80235 Three weeks of 4th month 2991 56% 1458 -3% 102832 Based on Energy Ministry’s weekly reports (GWh) Iran also decreased electricity imports by 23 percent in the first month of s...