Hassan Abbaszadeh said ending gas flaring in the 14 wells in the province of Khuzestan will add 4.5 million cubic meters (mcm) per day to the gas supply delivered to the Iranian petrochemical plants.
Abbaszadeh said ending flaring at the fields is part of a $1.1 billion project being implemented by the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries to extinguish 55 gas flares and to create 17 mcm per day of new feedstock supplies for its plants.
He said the 55 flares are located in Rag Sefid oilfield, a 70-year-old reserve located near the Persian Gulf coast in Khuzestan.
Back in March 2022, Iran’s Oil Ministry said it had awarded major contracts to domestic firms to reduce gas flaring by 600 million cubic feet (nearly 17 million cubic meters) by 2024.
Authorities in Iran’s former administrative government said at the time that the country would meet a zero flare target in 2025 by ending 40 mcm per day of flaring in its oilfields.
The NPC and its subsidiaries have been grappling with low supplies of natural gas in recent months amid a cold snap that has caused a major increase in demand for heating in Iran’s household sector.
Abbaszadeh, a deputy oil minister, said that major Iranian petrochemical plants producing methanol may go bankrupt if they do not receive enough gas feedstock in the coming months.
He said the NPC has introduced various schemes to help reduce demand for gas in the Iranian household and business sectors so that petrochemical plants can receive more supplies from the country’s nationwide gas network.
