Energy crises in the 14th government

According to the report of Energy Press, each of these sectors, which follow a chain of industry and services, have become a big problem for the country’s economy due to inefficiency in the first link of the chain.
Surveys show that the government of Masoud Mezikian is facing big problems in six energy sectors; The first case is the increasing trend of gas consumption and the faulty price signal. Years of inefficient pricing in the domestic gas sector has caused, despite the recent changes in the price of consumption stairs, due to the imperceptible changes and the real price drop, by sending a faulty signal to consumers as one of the fundamental reasons, among other factors, the upward trend of gas consumption every year. to happen
The average real price of gas – regardless of the effect of annual inflation – has decreased by 16% annually over the past five years, which has simultaneously increased the average consumption of each customer by 4%. In fact, wrong signaling in recent years has directly disrupted the optimal allocation of gas resources in the country, which has led to the outage of industrial gas in the past three winters.
Reports show that out of the total 750 million cubic meters of gas produced per year, 45% is used for household purposes, 27% is consumed by power plants, 8% by industries and finally 9% by petrochemical industries. That means, in total, the share of industry and petrochemicals in the total gas production of the country is 17%. At the same time, these industries bring the most export income to the country.
Iran, the third largest gas producer in the world after the United States and Russia, has been placed above China, Canada and Qatar, but this amount of production still does not meet the country’s demand. The increase in natural gas production in the country has stopped to some extent due to the pressure drop in South Pars, which accounts for about 75% of the country’s total crude gas production.
The decrease in the growth of natural gas production in the country has occurred due to the lack of sufficient investment in the development plans of new fields and the maintenance of previous fields, especially in South Pars. The import of natural gas through pipelines is also very limited due to the limitation of imported gas lines and the lack of LNG receiving terminals, and the supply of natural gas is completely dependent on domestic production. Therefore, the country’s natural gas supply is no longer responsive to the rising demand.
The challenge of debt and investment
The second challenge facing the 14th government is the pressure of gas shortage on petrochemicals and the deprivation of more than one billion dollars of currency.
The review of the monthly production of urea and methanol petrochemicals shows that the lack of gas caused the monthly average of these industries in the cold 4 months of the year.
(November to February) is 18% lower than the average of the other 8 months of the year.
This monthly reduction has reduced the production of these industries by about 70,000 tons and recorded a loss of 1.1 billion dollars at the end of 1401.
On average, the petrochemical industry consumes 66 million cubic meters of natural gas per year, of which 61% is used for energy supply and 39% as raw material. Therefore, stopping the supply of natural gas fuel for the petrochemical industry will lead to the stoppage of the entire industry’s production, which will cause irreparable damage to the country’s economy, and hence, the restriction of natural gas supply is often applied to feed natural gas.
Studies show that by imposing restrictions on the supply of natural gas to petrochemical complexes, the first result will return to the government itself because it will be deprived of the income from the sale of natural gas at a high price to petrochemical complexes and their natural gas at a low price to other sectors. Especially the household and commercial sector will allocate.
If the difference in the price of each cubic meter of natural gas for domestic and commercial use is equal to 15 cents, the government’s disinterest in imposing restrictions on the supply of natural gas for petrochemical complexes and increasing the supply of natural gas to domestic and commercial sectors will be extended.