Iran set to launch first natural gas storage facility in ME: Official

A senior Iranian gas industry official says Iran is ready to officially inaugurate the first underground natural gas storage facility of the Middle East in Sarajeh region of the Qom province, south of the capital city, Tehran.

“Sarajeh gas storage facility represents the first natural gas storage project in Iran and the Middle East which is now holding 350-360 million cubic meters of gas,” Javad Oji, Iran’s deputy oil minister for gas affairs, told Oil Ministry’s official news agency, SHANA, on Tuesday.

The official, who is also the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company, noted that after official inauguration, the facility will be able to supply at least four million cubic meters of gas to the national gas network.

Mehdi Fakour, the managing director of the National Iranian Central Oil Company, had already noted that Sarajeh storage facility consists of nine wells which are ready for natural gas injection and storage.

“The wells are designed in such a way that they hold 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas in the summertime and yield 4.5 million cubic meters of gas in four cold months of the year,” he added.

On May 5, the managing director of the Natural Gas Storage Company said Iran was planning to build an underground natural gas storage facility in salt domes near the city of Qom, which will be the first of its kind in the Middle East.

Massoud Samivand added that studies on storing gas in the new reservoir located in natural salt domes had already started, stressing that the new reservoir will be able to contain 3-4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

The official stated that the construction of three underground gas storage facilities was simultaneously going on in Sarajeh region of Qom Province, Yortsha region near the city of Varamin, and Shourijeh region in Khorasan Province.