TEHRAN - Iran’s Oil Ministry is expanding its natural gas storage capacity to reach a target of 100 million cubic meters (mcm) per day by 2028.
CEO of Iran Gas Engineering and Development Company said that the company has been working on six new gas storage projects across the country. 
Reza Noshadi said that Iran is also developing technologically-advanced compressors to use them in underground gas storage caverns.
Noshadi said the compressors, that generate pressures of up to 350 bars, will undergo technical tests this winter.
He said a second phase of the gas storage cavern in Sarajeh, in the central province of Qom, was nearly ready, adding the facility could supply gas to the Iranian grid next year.
The official said some 15 wells are being drilled in Shourijeh storage cavern in northeast Iran as part of a second phase in the facility.
Noshadi said by finishing the new gas storage projects, Iran will be able to supply some 100 mcm per day of natural gas from caverns in 2028.
Iran has a total gas production capacity of more than a billion cubic meters per day, almost all of it consumed by households, industries, power plants, and export customers in neighboring Turkey and Iraq.
Noshadi said a total of 20 gas refineries are currently working in Iran to refine raw natural gas supplied from gas fields, adding that the length of the gas transmission network in the country  had reached a whopping figure of 440,000 kilometers.