Javad Owji said on Monday in a televised interview: “According to the forecasts, from tomorrow, especially in the northern and northeastern provinces of the country, we will experience cold and a sharp drop in temperature to minus 15 degrees and the persistence of this decrease in temperature and cold will also make the work a little more difficult.”

He added: “Our colleagues in the Ministry of Petroleum and the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) are on full alert on the production platforms and upstream and downstream fields, refineries and transmission lines, and the gas network is stable.”

The petroleum minister stated: “Considering the consumption trend that happened these days and as it was announced in the news, in the domestic and commercial sector, we have had a record gas consumption of more than 620 to 630 million cubic meters per day, which may be consumed in the upcoming cold days. We will also reach 650 million cubic meters per day.”

In response to the question that due to the cold weather in the coming days, is it possible that the domestic gas supply will be restricted? He said: “Our red line is the domestic sector according to the order of the president. We will not allow the gas supply of this sector to be cut off under any circumstances, although our colleagues in the inspection department of the National Gas Company are overseeing the consumption trends.”

Owji emphasized: “God willing, with the measures we have planned and the cooperation of the people, we will not have any gas outages in the domestic sector.”