Iran boosts natural gas production by 50mcm

TEHRAN,Feb.14(MNA)--Iran has increased natural gas production by 50 million cubic meters (mcm) to overcome probable shortages during winter, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) managing director said. NIOC head Ahmad Qalebani said that some 600mcm of gas has been produced on the average during winter and supplied to different consuming sectors. Qalebani has said that the country’s daily oil and gas outputs should amount to five million barrels and 1.47 billion cubic meters by 2015. Meanwhile, the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) managing director Javad Owji said that the cross-country gas pipeline network has the capacity to transfer 750mcm of gas per day. Iran’s natural gas production capacity stands at around 554 million cubic meters per day, the NIGC’s spokesman said on February 5. Majid Boujarzadeh told that taking the imported gas from Turkmenistan into account, some 600mcm of natural gas is supplied across the country per day. Iran has exported some 7.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas since the beginning of the current calendar year, which started on March 21, 2011, up 10.5 percent compared with the same period last year. Iran sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia.