October 25-2013
The government warned the rural public last week that heating fuel may run short this winter as record quantities must be diverted to keep electric power generating plants running.
The power plants run mainly on natural gas, but the winter demand for natural gas for heating is so high that routinely there is not enough for the power plants.
The government then uses gasoil and fuel oil in the power plants, diverting those supplies from rural villages. This year it will be worse.
“This year, nearly 30 million tons of gasoil and fuel oil will be delivered to power plants because we will be short of nearly 36 billion cubic meters of natural gas,” Oil Minister Bijan Namdar-Zanganeh announced last week, giving the public advance warning.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s deputy prime minister for energy, Hussein Ash-Shahristani, announced last week that the long awaited supply of Iranian natural gas for Iraq will start flowing in November.
A pipeline has been in the works for almost a decade and construction will be completed shortly, he said. The pipeline will supply fuel for three Iraqi electric power-generating plants.
Neither Iran nor Iraq made any link between the gas pipeline to Iraq and the winter shortage of gas in Iran.