TEHRAN (AFP) – A dozen Iranian cities suffered gas cuts on Monday amid freezing winter temperatures after Turkmenistan completely halted the export of gas to its southern neighbour, energy officials said.<\/p>\n
"Turkmenistan reduced its exports to Iran by half two days ago but since Sunday afternoon, the exports have completely ceased," said a spokesman for the National Iranian Gas Company, quoted by the state broadcaster.<\/p>\n
Turkmenistan normally exports between 20 to 23 million cubic metres (706 to 812 million cubic feet) of gas daily to Iran, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
Following the halt in supplies from Turkmenistan some 11 cities in Iran’s northern provinces were suffering from gas cuts, according to the state broadcaster’s website.<\/p>\n
The nature of the cuts was not specified but provincial capitals Gorgan, Sari and Semnan were among the cities affected as well as other cities in the Ardebil, Gilan, Golestan, East Azarbaijan and West Azarbaijan provinces, it said.<\/p>\n
Northern and northwestern Iran are enduring a spate of cold weather, with snow as well as nighttime temperatures of -10 degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit).<\/p>\n
Despite boasting the world’s second largest gas reserves after Russia, Iran frequently suffers from winter gas shortages due to under-development of gas fields and massive domestic consumption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TEHRAN (AFP) – A dozen Iranian cities suffered gas cuts on Monday amid freezing winter temperatures after Turkmenistan completely halted the export of gas to its southern neighbour, energy officials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-4570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-economy","tag-updated"],"yoast_head":"\n