Mohammadnejad said at the ground breaking ceremony of a gas supply project in a rural region of the province that the domestic natural gas consumption is expected to reach 270 million cubic meters a day by the year end on March 20, and to 320 million cubic meters a day by the end of Third Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2000-2005).

He said that presently 1,400,000 families in 384 cities are benefitting from gas and the number of cities benefitting from the fuel will increase to 400.

He added that last year 120 billion cubic meters of natural gas were produced last year. 55 billion cubic meters out of the total was consumed in the country and the rest were injected to the oil wells to protect gas reserves, he said.

The official said 70 percent of the urban citizens are provided with natural gas, 1,300 industrial units and industrial townships are linked to the natural gas supply networks and the number of the units will reach 1,800 by the year end.

Mohammadnejad said that according to a Majlis ratification National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) was allowed in 1998 to implement projects for gas refining and transfer to the urban networks and to 1,800 industrial units as well as 10 power plants and two million new subscribers, amounting less than 1.311 billion dollars of buy-back facilities.

So far, he added, 80 percent of the projects have been implemented and in light of the projects more than 20 billion cubic meters of gas, worth more than dlrs two billion, would be replaced by other oil derivatives.

He referred to other projects for laying down 48 and 56-inch pipelines for transfer of natural gas in the country and said presently the project to lay down 48-inch pipelines in an area of 550 kilometers for transfer of natural gas from Qazvin to Tabriz is almost over and once operational, it would be one of the hugest natural gas transfer lines in the Middle East.

Once the three-phase project is fully implemented by October 12, the problem with meeting gas shortage of the northwestern Iranian Province of East Azarbaijan will be eliminated for the next half a century.

He said the project will cost rls 320 billion. Mohammadnejad added that the Third Five-Year Plan stipulates establishment of four refineries at a cost of dlrs 1.5 billion.

He said the refineries will be operational by the next three and a half or four years.

He added that the refineries are the second phase of Khangiran over the Sarakhs border region in Khorasan Province, Parsian region in Fars Province, Bid Boland region in Khuzestan Province and the Ilam Refinery.

Based on the Majlis ratification, the extra revenue caused out of oil derivatives' price hike--rls 20 increase for each liter--will be spent on expansion of gas supply project in villages, said Mohammadnejad.

Under the project, he said, more than 100,000 unemployed citizens will be employed annually.