Iran To Extract 20mcm Gas From Underground Storages

Tehran, Oct 28, IRNA – Iran will extract 20 mcm of gas from its Sarajeh and Shorijeh storage facilities as of mid-October for the country's winter consumption, a senior official at the Natural Gas Storage Company (NGSC) said on Tuesday. The NGSC Managing Director Masoud Samivand told IRNA that gas storage operation in the two facilities have been properly underway by injecting natural gas since last months. The Shourijeh facility is located in northeastern Iran 25 km southeast of the city of Sarakhs in Razavi Khorassan province, while the Serajeh facility lies 140 from the capital Tehran and 40 km southeast of the city of Qom. The gas from Shourijeh is delivered through Sarakhs-Neja pipeline to be fed to the trunklines stretched as far away as to North Khorasan, Gorgan and other northern provinces of the country. The Shourijeh gas storage facility, largest in the Middle East region, was inaugurated in northeastern Iran by Iran’s Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh. Shourijeh facility has the capacity to store 4.8 bcm of gas to be used during winter when gas consumption jumps sharply. It can also supply 20 mcm/d of gas in winter. During last year's cold winter, the Serajeh facility had properly met domestic demand by withdrawal of 9-10 mcm/d. Over 662 mcm of natural gas were extracted from Serajeh facility for domestic consumption last winter. Director of the Operation Department at National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) Abdolhossein Samari recently said that Iran will be able to pass behind the winter consumption climax by launching and operating the facilities in Shourijeh and importing gas from Turkmenistan. Iran has a contract to import 40 mcm/d of gas from Turkmenistan while the latter only delivers 23 to 24 mcm/d. Iran has become one of the five leading countries with underground natural gas storage facilities and the largest in the Middle East region. The natural gas storage plan is a strategic national project. According to international standards, each country should store 12-14 percent of its produced natural gas. The strategic natural gas storages play a key role in domestic supply and demand balance as well as in timely fulfilling of international commitments for gas exports./end