Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Talks About Progress in Gas Sector

According to Fars News Agency in a press conference in Esfahan Seyyed Reza Kasa’izadeh, the deputy oil minister and the head of the National Iranian Gas Company has said: since the ninth government came to power, about 25bn dollars of gas projects have been planned and there have been no projects of this high value in the ministry of oil until now.

He urged people for their cooperation in less consumption of gas so that the progress of these projects will have a faster pace and it will be possible to export more gas and extract more oil by injecting gas into the oil wells.

He said that Iran is the third country in gas consumption and there have to be proper planning to save more gas.

He said: At the moment more than 660 cities and 5,700 villages have access to gas and from the total number of 30 provinces, 29 of them have access to the gas network.

He added that in the next two years Esfahan will be the country’s first green province and explained that “green province” is referred to a province where more than 90 per cent of the cities and towns have access to the gas network.

He also said that there are about 430 CNG stations across the country and this rate has to increase to 1,800 and according to the international standards for every 1,000 cars there has to be one CNG station.

He said in total there are 28,000 km of gas transfer lines across the country we are adding to this rate every year more than the total number of gas transfer lines before the Revolution.

Originally published by Fars News Agency website, Tehran, in Persian 0757 12 Jun 08.

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