North-western Iran is bracing itself for fuel shortages as a winter cold snap drives increased consumption.
Temperatures plummeting as low as -1ºc have prompted Iranians to turn up their heating, putting a 518 million cubic meter per day (mcm/d) strain on the country’s gas supply. Iran’s state gas supplier announced that this has caused power cuts to hundreds of thousands of homes and reduced supply for industry.
The National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC ) has limited gas supply to power plants to just 12 mcm/d in order to guarantee power supplies for heating to homes and businesses.
The irony of this situation is that Iran has huge gas reserves of its own. However, it has been unable to raise production levels quickly enough to cope with the increase in demand, meaning that parts of northern Iran are now heavily dependent upon imports from Turkmenistan.
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