Middle East’s first natural gas storage facility inaugurated in Iran

The first natural gas storage facility in Iran and the entire Middle East was officially inaugurated on Saturday in the city of Qom.
The Sarajeh facility has the capacity to store 3.3 billion cubic meters of gas, ISNA reported.

The injection of natural gas into the facility started in April 2012. To date, over 750 million cubic meters of natural gas have been stored at the site.

During winter, up to 10 million cubic meters of gas per day will be supplied from the facility to consumers.

In November 2012, IRNA quoted National Iranian Gas Company Managing Director Javad Owji as saying that Iran plans to establish 40 gas storage facilities in the coming years.

Iran to double output at South Pars gas field

Iran will double output at the South Pars gas field, Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of the Sarajeh gas storage facility.

The South Pars/North Dome field is a gas field located in the Persian Gulf. It is the world’s largest gas field and is shared by Iran and Qatar. The field’s recoverable gas reserves are estimated to be equivalent to 215 billion barrels of oil. It also holds about 16 billion barrels of recoverable condensate.

The South Pars field, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of total world reserves.

On September 9, 2012, Qasemi announced that Iran’s exploitation of the South Pars gas field will match the level of Qatar’s exploitation of the North Dome gas field by the end of Iranian calendar year 1392 (ends March 20, 2014) if $54 billion is invested in gas projects.

“For the development of this gas field, an investment of 650 billion rials (over $54 billion) has been put on the agenda,” Qasemi added.

Iran sits on the world’s second largest natural gas reserves after Russia.