The signing ceremony was held Sunday at the Shahid Rajaei Hall of the National Iranian Gas Company, attended by NIGC Managing Director Saeid Tavakoli and several members of Parliament.

The agreements were signed by the chief executives of the provincial gas companies of Isfahan, Razavi Khorasan, Qom, Kermanshah, Markazi, Yazd, Mazandaran, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Kurdestan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and South Khorasan, along with the operator companies.

Under the contracts, the operators will work to curb gas consumption in residential, commercial, administrative and agricultural sectors, as well as greenhouses, poultry farms, bakeries, brick kilns and major industries.

According to the report, about 22% of the country’s produced energy is wasted daily across power plants, industries, households and agriculture. Based on Article 46, Table 10 of Iran’s Seventh Development Plan, 1.285 million barrels of oil equivalent in lost energy must be recovered by the end of the program — equal to roughly 200 million cubic meters of gas per day, or the output capacity of eight phases of the South Pars gas field.

The plan calls for energy recovery in both consumption and production sectors. Global experience shows that improving efficiency and reclaiming wasted energy is possible through three main approaches: technical and technological measures, management initiatives such as launching an energy exchange and overseeing consumption, and economic and behavioral culture-building. The combination of the three is seen as key to optimizing energy use.

The report said greater attention to the energy supply chain is also essential. In that chain, the flow of goods and services runs from suppliers to customers, while financial flows move in the opposite direction. Modern models add three more elements: identifying customer needs before production, analyzing past data to improve processes, and creating added value for goods and services. On that basis, companies known as “operators” focus on data and expertise to manage both traditional and new flows between sellers and customers, boosting supply-chain productivity.

In Iran’s gas industry, these dynamics are increasingly evident. Operator firms, acting through competitive mechanisms and advanced technologies, can play a major role in cutting energy use and raising efficiency. By shifting consumption from low-tariff sectors to higher-value, productive uses and carrying out conservation projects, the companies can create economic incentives while improving the overall state of gas consumption.