Reza Sepah Vand, a member of the Iranian regime’s Majlis (parliament) Energy Commission, highlighted various issues resulting from mismanagement, warning that the imbalance between natural gas production and consumption in Iran “is continuously increasing.”
On Thursday, October 24, in an interview with ILNA news agency, Sepah Vand announced that “the pressure in the South Pars gas field has decreased, making gas extraction more difficult, and some resources have encountered problems.”
Meanwhile, experts have been warning for over a decade about this issue and the need to increase the pressure in the wells of this field.
This Majlis member added that gas waste and leakage in the national gas network is “very high” and that “on the other hand, excessive consumption has increased, and therefore, the imbalance is constantly rising.”
In recent days, the regime’s official news agency, IRNA, also reported that a National Development Fund report reflects the sharp increase in the gas imbalance along with declining production.
This report states that with the current production and consumption trend, gas supply will begin to decline next year.
According to reports, 75% of the gas for residential areas and the commercial and industrial sectors in Iran is currently supplied by the South Pars gas field. Modernization and upgrading of this main supplier’s equipment have been overdue for years, resulting in pressure drops.
IRNA, citing government reports, writes that “alarming forecasts indicate that if this production and demand trend continues, by 2041, the pressure drop in South Pars reservoirs and increased consumption will create an imbalance of approximately 1,000 million cubic meters per day.”
These new warnings from the Energy Commission member about the consequences of declining reservoir pressure in the South Pars field come after the Iranian Oil Ministry, under President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration, signed a $20 billion contract in early 2024 with domestic companies to build compression platforms in this field.
The signing of this contract to construct, install, and commission 14 compression platforms was carried out despite the fact that the need for such platforms had been identified over a decade ago, with negotiations between the Oil Ministry and various companies lasting at least eight years.
Alongside the signing of the $20 billion contract, then-Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji stated that at least $80 billion in investment would be required to increase production by 50%.
The Majlis Research Center had previously estimated in a report that by 2041, Iran’s total natural gas supply would be less than 898 million cubic meters per day. In the same report, daily consumption in 2041 was projected to be around 1,411 million cubic meters. Based on this, the country would face a daily shortage of 512 million cubic meters of natural gas.
On Thursday, Sepah Vand also warned about “excessive” gasoline consumption, which has forced the country to import the product from abroad and called for better management and optimization of gasoline usage.
This regime’s Majlis’ member considered measures like combating fuel smuggling, requiring car manufacturers to produce fuel-efficient vehicles, and making the automobile market competitive through licenses for the private sector as necessary steps before any gasoline price increase. This essentially points to extensive mismanagement in various aspects of energy production, distribution, and consumption in Iran.
