فصلنامه مطالعات اقتصاد انرژی
پیاپی 32 (بهار 1391)

Use of Gas-to-Liquid(GTL) Technology to transform gas into more easily exported products is of great interest to Iran as the country with the second most significant natural gas reserves in the World. This paper studies the economic feasibility of GTL using the COMFAR III software emphasizing NPV, IRR, MIRR, normal and dynamic Payback period criteria, in the context of removal of fuel subsidies in Iran. The study uses sensitivity analysis to check the effect of possible changes on main factors, such as scale (capacity), capital cost, crude oil price and "with" or "without" gas refinery plant on profitability of GTL products. The results confirm the feasibility of GTL technology and indicate the any decrease in capital and operating costs and increase in crude oil price increases the profitability of the project.

Localized generation is defined as a small-scale power generation system and in this paper power generation using small wind turbines, is discussed as one such possibility. Since both rated power and wind turbine hub height affect characteristics of wind energy conversion system (WECS), this paper has developed a method that consumers can use to decide on the best choice, taking into account their electricity needs and the geographical conditions of the region. The factors that affect the WECS can be divided into two categories, family load demand and geographical conditions of the wind turbine setup point. Since cost per unit (CPU) of the power generated by WECS is important for the consumers, in this paper mathematical relations between the CPU and rotor diameter and wind turbine hub height, which are respectively derived from the above factors, are estimated. In order to analyze the effect of each option and also increase estimation validity, wind turbines with different rated power and hub height are considered for four locations with different geographical conditions. These locations are selected from amongst locations with the greatest potential for generating wind energy, in areas characterized by cold and hot weather conditions. The study finds that the cost per kilowat of electricity falls between Rials 900 and 1300 which is comparable to electricity prices after removal of fuel subsidies. The cost however is not low enough to encourage the private sector to invest in it. For that to happen the State has to provide financial incentives.

Renewable energies are more compatible with sustainable development as they are renewable and have minimal negative environmental impacts in their production process. As a result renewable energies are increasing their share in the global system of energy provision. Given the observed positive correlation between economic growth and energy consumption, it is clear that the achievement of developmental goals of developing countries is dependent on their access to new sources of energy. This study investigates the relationships between renewable and nonrenewable energy consumptions and economic growth of selected developing countries (including Iran) during the period of 1980-2009. It does so by using panel unit root, panel Cointegration, and pooled least square econometric procedures and tests to analysis the eventual relations between the variables within the selected countries. The study confirms the existence of a Cointegration relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in the selected developing countries. The results further reveal that the impact of consumptiomn of nonrenewable energies on growth has been greater than that of renewable energies in the period of study.

This paper studies the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution, as reflected in the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), in Iran during the period 1960-2006. CO2 is used as an indicator of environmental pollution and the EKC is estimated using the Logistic Smooth Transition Regressions (LSTR) approach. The advantage of using this method is its flexibility and transformability into quadratic or cubic models. The results do not support the existence of a an Environmental Kuznets relationship in Iran. We, however, observe a positive non-linear relationship between per capita income and per capita CO2 emissions. We found evidence of a threshold behavior in the relationship between CO2 and per-capita GDP in Iran; such that, there is a threshold level of per-capita GDP beyond which the relationship between these variables changes. The results show that there is a positive relationship between the CO2 emission and the economic growth at both higher and lower levels of income. However, this positive relationship becomes weaker as income per capita increases.

This paper uses a network flow model to estimate optimal mix of different modes of transport of gasoline from refineries and ports to main stores of NIORDC(National Iranian oil Refining & Distribution comany), taking into account limitations including oil pipeline capacity, available road transport and reserves capacity. The study attempts to define how much gasoline should be transferred from which refinery or port, using which transportation system to each demand centre in order to minimize total transportation costs. The model is first applied to assess the total cost of transporting all the gasoline that can be transported by using the existing pipeline network, assuming that no possibiity exists for transportation by roads. At the next stage after subtracting the amount that can be transported by pipeline the cost of transporting the balance load by trucks is calculated. The results indicate that while pipelines transport the largest share of oil products the total cost of pipeline transport is substantially less than the cost incurred in transporting a much smaller quantity of oil products by tankers. The model shows that extending the pipeline network will increase the efficiency of oil product movement within the country and reduce the total associated cost for transport of oil products, indicating that the current mixture of modes of transporting oil products is not optimal. Finally sensitivity analysis is used to assess the extent to which results change under assumption of different shadow prices and other variables of the model.

The Caspian Sea region is presently a potential major source of crude oil and natural gas and plays an important role in the World oil and gas supply. Due to this potential four of the Caspian Sea neighbouring countrie, namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan, have started to increase their oil and gas production from this area. This paper develop a SWOT analysis to evaluate the future of Iran’s oil and gas industry in the Caspian sea. The article also analyzes the barriers Iran faces in its attempts to take full advantage of its potential in this strategic area.

In this paper an attempt is made to identify the rules that determine changes in oil prices behavior in order to better forecast the oil market. Rule extraction in this research is done by the GMDH (Group Method of Data Handling) algorithm according to the Fujimoto and Nakabayashi (2001) approach. The results confirm that while there are not any absolute rules in the oil prices behaviour, we can extract relative rules on frontier points in various position of the oil market.

The impact of climate changes on demand for energy at the household level and its likely negative environmental impacts have preoccupied policy makers. Different countries have adopted a range of measures to deal with this phenomenon. One of the effective policies adopted by Iran to reduce air pollution has been the replacement of oil derivatives by natural gas for residential purposes, even though the move to natural gas was driven more by the need to economize on local consumption of oil in order to increase oil exports. Since transport and storage of natural gas is a costly affair, this study attempts to identify the components of home demand for natural gas that is sensitive to temperature changes and that which is independent of this factor, in order to better assess peak demand as compared to underlying demand. The study provides a system for estimating changes in demand for natural gas in different provinces in order to better plan the expansion of the gas pipeline and optimal levels of reserves to deal with expected peak demand.