He added the volume of raw gas that is produced in the upstream sector before delivery to gas processing plants has increased by 30 mcm/d over the past two and a half months and this trend will continue gradually.

Referring to the entry of early cold weather into the country, he said with each degree decrease in temperature, natural gas consumption rises by 25 mcm/d in the residential and commercial sectors.

Paknejad said: "As the government considers any restrictions on gas delivery to the residential sector a red line, we may shift restrictions to other sectors, even though we are trying to prevent that as well."

Elsewhere in his remarks, he said: When the residential sector's gas consumption goes up, naturally we have no choice but to restrict gas supply to power plants and the industrial sector, implying that power plants should switch to using gasoil for generating electricity. 

According to him, the volume of gasoil delivered to power plants has doubled over the past 25 days hitting 42 million liters per day but it is not enough due to the reason I referred to earlier.

Paknejad said that one of the effective solutions to pass the current situation is that citizens to adjust the degree of comfort temperatures at their homes and commercial and administrative sectors to extend their cooperation which can be very helpful in meeting the residential sector's gas needs.