Iran: The National Iranian Gas Company has stopped supplying gas to a number of cement plants due to a wave of cold sweeping the country.
As gas consumption has peaked in the recent cold days, some cement plants, including those in the west of the country, have stopped receiving gas, according to Abdolreza Sheikhan, Secretary of Iran's Cement Association. He complained that with the shortage of gas, the plants cannot use the heavy fuel oil mazut either because a government law to provide the factories with mazut at the same price as gas has not been implemented. Despite the fact that the cement plants store enough mazut to run for 7 - 10 days, they are not using their reserves because they are not sure if they will receive mazut as the law has stipulated. Sheikhan said that, when the plants stopped working for 20 days under similar circumstances in 2014, the Oil Ministry refused to pay them from the income it had made by economising on gas.