Bijan Zanganeh: “We have no choice, but to use “Mazut”

“We do not want mazut to be consumed at all but we have no choice and diesel is delivered as much as possible. So, no more is practicable. There is no question of exporting diesel and we deliver the surplus of this product. The power plants must receive a part of this product from the tanks,” said Bijan Zanganeh, the Iranian Minister of Oil, as a result of the intensification of air pollution in Tehran and other metropolises and the rise of criticism of the use of mazut in power plants to supply electricity.
“We cannot exclude all provinces in the discussion of mazut consumption. Regarding cement, we were supposed to use mazut since winter and the cabinet approved that the price of mazut should be equal to their gas consumption,” Zanganeh added.
Zanganeh said, “One of the reasons for this increase is the opening of the windows with the assumption that Coronavirus will come out, while people are asked to both lower the temperature and avoid wasting energy”.
 he stated that, “The concerns about the road tankers have been resolved and we tried not to have a problem regarding the transportation of cargo to the power plants. If electricity consumption is reduced, mazut consumption will be reduced too and all experiments to save gas consumption with electricity priority will be applicable. The current gas consumption of the country is more than 825 million cubic meters per day. Of this amount, 556 million cubic meters is for domestic, public and small industrial consumption. The average gas consumption of the country is about 4/7 million barrels equivalent to crude oil and we must find a solution for this amount of consumption.