HAZAR WORLD - SAYI: 34 - EYLÜL 2015

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According to BP statistics, Iran has
the largest natural gas resources
with its 34 trillion cubic meters
of natural gas reserves. Although
the country has vast natural gas resources,
it has not succeeded in becoming
a key player in natural gas trade. One
of the most important reasons of this
failure is the constantly increasing natural
gas demand in the country. Indeed,
natural gas constitutes 60% Iran’s total
energy consumption.
Despite the fact that Iran has the fourth
largest natural gas production volume
in the world, almost all natural gas produced
within the country is consumed
in the domestic market. Within the last
decade, Iran’s consumption and production
has followed roughly the same
development trend. In this regard, Iran
produced 172.6 bcm natural gas in 2014,
170.2 bcm of which was consumed in the
domestic market. While the consumption
is quite high, production is still
below the actual capacity of the country.
Iran has 18.2% of the world’s total natural
gas reserves; nevertheless it could
only produce 5% of the total natural gas
produced around the world in 2014.
BP istatistiklerine göre İran 34 trilyon
metreküplük doğal gaz kaynakları
ile dünyada en fazla doğal gaz rezervlerine
sahip ülke konumunda.
Fakat her ne kadar zengin doğal gaz kaynaklarına
sahip olsa da İran şu ana kadar
doğal gaz ticaretinde önemli bir oyuncuya
dönüşemedi. Bunun en önemli nedenlerinden
biri de ülkede sürekli artan doğal gaz
talebi. Nitekim İran’ın toplam enerji tüketiminin
%60’ı doğal gazdan oluşuyor.
İran dünyada en çok doğal gaz üreten 4.
ülke konumunda olsa da, ülkede üretilen
doğal gazın neredeyse tamamı iç piyasa-
01
İran’ın Assaluyeh
limanındaki Güney Pars
gaz sahasında faaliyet
gösteren petrokimya
tesisi.
Petrochemical
facilities of the South
Pars gas field in the
southern Iranian port of
Assaluyeh.
01
PROTECTION POLICY PREVENTED
DEVELOPMENT
By reviewing the current figures, we
can easily observe that there is a great
number of unused natural gas fields in
Iran. There are a couple of reasons behind
it. First of all, Iran was subjected
to international sanctions from the year
1979. Therefore Iran’s energy resources
could not be developed sufficiently. In
this scope, Iran had to develop its energy
resources all by itself. However, it
could not manage to effectively develop
its energy reserves in this period because
the country was facing economic
problems and it was deprived of the
necessary technology to develop oil
and natural gas fields. Besides, Iran
had difficulty in finding a market to sell
its natural gas due to sanctions. Thus,
many natural gas fields in the country
were left undeveloped.
On the other hand, another major obstacle
before the efficient development of
natural gas fields is the current energy
law in Iran. The Constitution of Iran
prohibits the transfer of ownership of
natural gas resources to foreigners. In
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