Iran Gas Shortage Tightens
The Iranian government since February 3 has ordered gas supplies to be cut off to state entities and public institutions from 6pm until the next morning each day to maintain gas supplies to homes.
Gas outages were reported in some regions, while supplies to power plants declined significantly during recent weeks.
Household demand hit an historic record Feb.3 with consumption by that sector reaching 575mn m3 (20.3bn ft3) that day, accounting for up to 76% of total sales gas injected to grid (including gas withdrawn from storage); it had been hovering close to that level for several days previously.
Iran’s gas exports plunged from 50mn m3/d in summer to 30mn m3/d in winter, but it remains in line with supply contracts to Iraq and Turkey. Iran delivers more gas to its neighbours in warm seasons than in the winter. Turkey always has recourse to alternative Russian, LNG and spot imports, while Iraq’s peak demand peaks in the summer when gas-fired power is at a premium for air-cooling.
Iran increased refined gas production by only 5.5% to 215bn m3 in 2017, but the growth for the previous year was above 9%. A halt by Turkmenistan on its gas exports to Iran (9bn m3/yr) since January 2017 has put Iran in a tough situation each winter, when its housing sector’s demand triples.