Page 15 - MEOG Week 04 2023

MEOG NEWS IN BRIEF MEOG

gas to much of Iran’s north, cut pipeline monitoring centre, said: “We passed peak Kazakh pipeline operator
provision after the big freeze caused major gas consumption at the beginning of this
technical difficulties with hydrocarbon flows. week and entered a period with a balanced seeks Gulf help in becoming
Iran, as it happens has the first or second temperature, which we guess will remain
largest gas reserves in the world - it is officially constant in the next few days.” gas producer
second, but further large discoveries yet to be He added: “But in the middle of next week,
factored into the statistics mean it looks like we have a temperature drop coming again and Kazakh state-owned gas pipeline operator
taking top place from Russia in the not-too- we anticipate an increase in gas consumption.” Qazaqgaz has said it hopes to find potential
distant future - but for one reason or another, At current usage rates, around 75% of partners in the Middle East for domestic
including US sanctions that thwart foreign Iran’s gas is consumed domestically, by homes, natural gas projects.
investment, a lack of spending on its gas businesses and industries, Izadbaksh noted. Qazaqgaz is planning to develop into a
grid has left certain regions vulnerable to gas Iran is for ever talking about becoming a major gas producer, diversifying away from its
outages. Hence the reliance on Turkmenistan’s huge exporter of gas, but it still has some way role as solely a pipeline operator.
cross-border gas transfers in some northern to go in tending to its own gas provision first. The company has already signed
parts. National Gas Organisation of Iran memoranda of cooperation with two United
The cold snap, which has brought stories of spokesman Abbas Azami put gas shortages up Arab Emirates-based firms, Petromal and
people freezing in the northeastern Khorasan and down the country in the past week or so Dragon Oil. Qazaqgaz is hoping the two
province in particular, and caused the Iranian at around 200-250mn cubic metres per day. companies will participate in Qazaqgaz-led
energy minister to beg people to turn down In the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan exploration and the development of new
their thermostats, rather caught Iranian Province, the joke was that gas had become Kazakh gas assets.
authorities off-guard. a “luxury good”. Hardline Iranian MPs The memorandum with Petromal also
Despite the worst of the cold weather now supportive of Moscow, who spent the autumn eyes the joint construction of a gas processing
passing, daytime temperatures in much of menacing Europe with warnings that it would plant in Kazakhstan.
northeastern Iran are still only a touch above face a “harsh winter” when stocks of Russian BNE
zero, while at night temperatures were still gas ran out given the tangle with the Kremlin
reportedly down to -10 degrees Celsius. over the Ukraine invasion, are now looking a
The country, though, is scraping through. tad sheepish.
Hamid Izadbaksh of the national gas BNE

Week 04 25•January•2023 www. NEWSBASE .com P15