From Radio Farda, February 17:
The Spokesman of Iran Electrical Power Industry on Monday said a shortage of fuel for power plants is responsible for blackouts in Tehran and several other cities across Iran.
In the past few days unannounced power cuts, as well as Internet disruptions, have affected many businesses, banks, homes and even caused heavy traffic jams in Tehran and Tabriz. In cold winter months more gas is consumed for heating.
Some of the country's power plants rely on gas for fuel and high consumption of gas has starved the power plants, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi told a local economic publication on Monday.
Domestic and industrial gas consumption in Iran amounts to 600-690 million cubic meters per day, depending on the time of the year. Iran officially says it produces 800m cubic meters of gas daily of which about 60m cubic meters is allocated to power plants for electricity production. But this level of production might be somewhat exaggerated, since it is unable to export the amount of natural gas it has committed to pump to Iraq.....MORE
Nonetheless, the Islamic authorities have repeatedly boasted in the past year that natural gas production has significantly increased in the country.
However, such claims have never been supported by facts and figures.
For example, the NIGC's dispatching director, Mehdi Jamshidi, maintained on November 20 that the total amount of natural gas consumption in Iran had reached 693 million cubic meters. But the figure given was exactly the same as the one published in the previous year, indicating no real increase....
Lending some credence to the story was this quick hit from the Tehran Times, January 25:
Iran gas situation: Are power plants facing feedstock shortage?
