Iran wasted $1.5 billion of its liquefied gas by flaring in South Pars alone.
Fars News Agency, based on a report from the financial statements of the South Pars Gas Complex, wrote that restrictions on the export of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and the filling of storage tanks for this hydrocarbon from November 2018 to the end of that year have caused 3 million tons of liquefied petroleum gas produced by 6 gas refineries to be wasted in pipelines.
Liquefied natural gas is Iran's third largest source of export revenue, after oil exports and petrochemical products.
Detailed customs statistics for 2018 show that the average export price of the country's liquefied natural gas was more than $500 per ton that year. That same year, Iran exported $5.3 billion worth of petroleum gases (propane, butane, etc.).
Thus, the loss of 3 million tons of liquefied gas has cost Iran $1.5 billion. Of course, this is only part of the waste of energy resources in Iran.
World Bank statistics and official reports from the Iranian Ministry of Oil show that in 2018, about 17.7 billion cubic meters of gas produced in the country was burned and wasted in flares at the same production stage.
Part of Iran's gas is produced from oil fields, which is called "associated gas." Due to its failure to invest and absorb technology, Iran cannot collect a significant portion of the associated gas produced from oil fields and burns it in flares.
The value of this amount of gas at regional prices in 2018 is about $4.5 billion, and at East Asian and European market prices, it is more than $5.5 billion. Of course, the cost of its air pollution is not less than the value of this gas.
According to World Bank statistics, Iran's share of global flaring is about 13 percent, ranking third in the world, slightly behind Russia and Iraq.
Thus, in 2018, Iran suffered losses of about $6 billion from gas flaring and the loss of liquefied natural gas in the South Pars pipelines alone. On the other hand, burning these gases annually produces tens of millions of tons of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, causing air pollution and global warming.
The Global Carbon Project reported that last year, Iran was ranked sixth in the world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, producing 780 million tons of carbon dioxide, of which 76 million tons were directly due to gas flaring in oil fields.
This, along with other factors, has caused Iran, along with the United States and Saudi Arabia, to have the worst performance in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
Source: Radio Farda
