Page 66 - IRANRptJun22

Iranian cement industry struggling to meet demand in Iran for cement, he was also quoted as saying.
Iran’s 62 cement companies produced 32.4mn tonnes of cement in the first half of the current Persian year (March 21-September 22), down 9.2% y/y, Global Cement reported on November 2. In the last Persian year, production was 68.3mn tonnes, with 11mn tonnes exported. Domestic cement consumption was 65mn tonnes, cited official statistics showed.
9.1.13 Renewable energy sector news
Tavanir official gives progress update on Iran’s construction of nine thermal power plants
Iran sets aside $40bn in reserves for nuclear power construction programme
The construction of nine thermal power plants across Iran, begun in February, has reached the 60% progress threshold, according to the deputy managing director of the Iranian Electricity Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir), as cited by IRIB on May 31.
Iran desperately needs to build up its non-hydro electricity supplies. Persistent drought has affected the country's ability to produce energy from hydro-electric dams located around Tehran and elsewhere. The development of nuclear power in Iran has, meanwhile, not progressed as rapidly as was hope for in recent years.
"The power plants that are being built with industry investment will have a generating capacity of 5,300 megawatts," the Tavanir director, Seyed Zaman Hosseini, said.
Breaking down progress, he noted that in the provinces of Semnan, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Yazd, Kerman, Khorasan, Hormozgan, Markazi and Sistan-Baluchistan, thermal power plant work had progressed to the extent of 90%, 86%, 72%, 64%, 57%, 50% , 48%, 24% and 22%, respectively.
“All the thermal power plants will be equipped with MAP2B gas turbines manufactured by MAPNA Group, a leading Iranian engineering and energy company,” Zaman Hosseini added.
Iran’s state budget for the next Persian calendar year (starts late March 2022) sets aside the equivalent of $40bn in reserves for the construction of nuclear power plants, Mehr News Agency reported.
Iran boasts the 1,000 MW Bushehr nuclear power plant—the first such civilian facility in the Middle East—that was connected to the grid in 2013, and the drought experienced by the country this year, its worst in 50 years, and climate change considerations appear to have brought home to officials the need to accelerate the construction of more such power plants. Iranians endured substantial power cuts during the hottest months as a lack of rainfall meant much of Iran’s hydroelectricity capacity could not be deployed.
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, was quoted as saying by Mehr that the construction of additional nuclear power plant capacity would likely begin in the next Persian year. Projects would be financed with foreign investment, domestic financing, government resources and the acquisition of fixed assets, he said. An executive funding plan is to be prepared by the AEOI in cooperation with the Planning and Budgetary Organization (PBO) and the Ministry of Finance and Economy. The status of US sanctions applied to Iran will clearly be a consideration where foreign funding is concerned.
Iran’s nuclear industry, which started making a name for itself in the 1970s, remains under the scrutiny of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with the major powers concerned that the Iranians keep it entirely civilian, something Tehran insists it is committed to ensuring.
66 IRAN Country Report June 2022 www.intellinews.com