Industries Shut Down as Iran's Energy Crisis Gets Dire

Industries Shut Down as Iran’s Energy Crisis Gets Dire

Iran is facing a “full-blown energy emergency” with government offices closed or on reduced hours, plus schools and colleges forced to go online, according to a report by The New York Times, which said manufacturing had been brought to a near halt, while highway and shopping malls were in darkness because of the lack of power.

Iran is one of the world’s top suppliers of gas and crude oil normally, but targeted attacks by Israel, which secretly blew up two pipelines in February, plus “years of sanctions, mismanagement, aging infrastructure and wasteful consumption” had created a crisis that was severely affecting daily life, it said.

President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was elected in July, had apologized to citizens in a live TV address this month and explained that “we are facing very dire imbalances in gas, electricity, energy, water, money and environment,” adding that “all of them are at a level that could turn into a crisis.”

Officials said the country needed abate 350 million cubic meters of gas a day to function, but with temperatures plunging the government had to either cut gas to homes or shut the supply to power plants that generate electricity. It opted to do the latter because 90% of Iranians rely on gas for heat and cooking, so they needed it to keep warm.

By last Friday 17 power plants were off line and the rest only partly operational. That meant state and private industries could face losses of 30-50% – billions of dollars all up.

The crisis had caused the rial to sink to its lowest ever rate against the US dollar.

Read the full report: The New York Times.