GREATER CASPIAN REGION WEEKLY OVERVIEW – JULY 12th
Iran
Huge jump in Iran’s weekly gas delivery to power plants
Iran’s Energy Ministry’s latest weekly report indicates a huge increase in gas deliveries to power plants during a week to July 7th.
During July 1th to 7th, Iran delivered 1.541 billion cubic meters (bcm) or more than 220 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) to power plants.
In total, during 110 days of Iran’s fiscal year (March 21 to July 7), Iran delivered 18.613 bcm of natural gas (or 169 mcm/d) to power plants, which indicates 18.7 percent increase year-to-year.
During this period, about 553 million liters (ML) of gas-oil (-69.2 percent Y/Y) , as well as 1,276 ML of fuel oil (-45.7 percent Y/Y) was consumed in Iran’s power plants.
In total, 82,913 million kWh of electricity was produced during 110 days in Iran, of which 2,649 million kWh was exported (-22 percent), while 1,329 million kWh of electricity was imported (+17 percent).
Iran’s power generation capacity is more than 73 GW, while the actual production capacity stands at less than 58 GW.
Iran refines 43 bcm gas in 2Q15
Iran produced about 43 bcm of natural gas during first three months of current fiscal year (Marhc 21 to June 23, approximately equals to second quarter of 2015), Abdol-Hossein Samari, deputy director of the National Iranian Gas Co. announced on July 6th.
He said that the historic gas refining record broke in March with producing 538 mcm/d of gas.
Iran produced about 168 bcm of refined gas during last fiscal year.
Iran planned to increase refined gas production to about 330 bcm per annum by 2018. Samari said that for this aim, the number of gas refineries should increase from 13 to 19, the gas compressor station should increase from 71 to 91 and the gas network should increase from 35,000 km to 40,000 km.
Iran currently produces above 660 mcm/d of raw gas and planned to increase this volume to 1,100 mcm/d to 1,200 mcm/d by 2018.
Iran allocates $1.4 B to develop Kish gas field
Iran allocated $1.4 billion to the development of Kish gas field, Iran ’s First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri announced on June 7th.
The field is projected to produce 9 bcm of gas as well as 4 million barrels of gas condensates per year.
The Kish gas field is Iran’s largest non-shared natural gas field, locates in Persian Gulf.
The field’s reserves is estimated at 1.8 trillion cubic meters of in-situ gas and 514 million barrels of condensates. Iran discovered this field in 2006 and started to develop the project in 2007.
The National Iranian Drilling Company has drilled 13 new wells at the Kish gas field located in the Persian Gulf, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported last October.
Iran projected to start early gas production from Kish field in November with 1 bcm per annum, then to raise this volume to 9 bmc gradually.
Iran starts piping in off-shore South Pars Phases 20&21
Iran started piping in off-shore phases 20 and 21 of giant South Pars gas field. According a report, released by Pars Oil and Gas Company on July 12th.
The report says that two separate pipeline, each one with 105 km length would transit 50 mcm/d of these phases’ gas to the refineries in Asaluyeh city, Bushehr Province.
These phases also is aimed to produce one million tons of ethane per year as well as 75,000 barrels of gas condensate together by the end of 2016.
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan welcomes Italian company’s involvement in TAP
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said during a visit to Milan's EXPO international trade fair on July 9th that Baku is open to Italian gas infrastructure group Snam to take a stake in the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).
Responding to the reporters’ question about the possibility of Snam’s investment in TAP, aliyev said that "Why not? If someone would allocate its shares to other companies I don't see any problems".
Snam CEO told Reuters in an interview in June the company was ready to evaluate buying 20 percent of TAP.
TAP's current shareholders are BP (20 percent), the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) (20 percent), Norway's Statoil (20 percent), Belgium's Fluxys (19 percent), Spain's Enagas (16 percent) and Swiss company Axpo (5 percent).
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan criticizes Gazprom over gas debts
Turkmenistan’s Oil and Gas Ministry criticized Russian Gazprom on July 11th over unpaid debts as well as decreasing gas intake from this country.
The ministry said during an announcement that despite the obligation of Gazprom to take 70-80 bcm of Turkmen gas, this company purchased but 42 bcm of gas from Ashgabat before 2009, but the volume decreased to 10-11 bcm during last years, while Russia informed Turkmenistan that it would import only 4 bcm on Turkmen gas in 2015.
The report says that despite huge and suddenly plunge in Gazprom’s gas intake from Turkmenistan, this company hasn’t paid any money to Ashgabat since the beginning of 2015.
The Oil and Gas Ministry hasn’t revealed any figure, but some Russian media outlets put the debt volume at $300 million.
TAPI pipeline states to select consortium leader next month
Turkmenistan President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said that negotiations around development of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) are entering the final stage and a consortium leader will be named in September.
Berdymukhamedov made this statement on July 11th during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Ashgabat.
It’s not clear which company would lead the TAPI consortium, but the 1,735-km long pipeline is estimated to cost about $10 billion.
The pipeline is aimed to deliver 33 bcm of Turkmen gas to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India by 2020.