October 04-2013
Iran faces serious gas shortages over the next two years be-
cause its giant South Pars field has not been developed
quickly enough and domestic demand has grown, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar-Zanganeh said Tuesday.
Zanganeh was effectively saying that everything his predecessor claimed about South Pars had been a lie.
Even Zanganeh said a few weeks ago that huge quantities of gas would start flowing to Oman in less than two years when he signed a supply deal at the end of August.
But analysts have questioned whether Iran can extract enough gas to meet existing supply deals as long as Western sanctions that have hobbled energy projects remain in place.
Zanganeh now says that is true. He said Iran is likely to produce about 30 billion cubic meters less gas than it will need this year. That normally means it must use costly and contaminating oil products to fuel power stations.
“Even though we import 40 million cubic meters a day of gas from Turkmenistan, we still face a shortage and we have to consume oil products in power plants,” Shana, the Oil Ministry news agency, quoted him as saying.
“This figure is catastrophic due to the impact on the environment by polluting the air.”
He didn’t say what it meant for home heating this winter. Iran normally imports a great deal of gas from Turkmenistan to heat homes in the northeast.
According to the latest estimates by BP, Iran consumed around 156 bcm of gas in 2012, making it the third largest consumer behind the United States and Russia.
