Azerbaijan , Baku, March 14 /Trend, A.Yusifzade /
Iran's daily gasoline production capacity will rise by 28 million liters to 72 million liters in the next Iranian year (March 21,2011-March 20,2012) Shana reported quoting of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) managing director Alireza Zaighami as saying.
According to Zaighami, current trend of sliding gasoline consumption will continue next year. "Iran's daily gasoline consumption will be reduced to about 53 million liters while production capacity will rise to roughly 72 million liters per day, next year."
Stressing on the necessity of energy consumption management, Zaighami said earlier that if the gasoline rationing and targeted subsidies plans had not come into force, the average gasoline consumption would have surged to 100 million liters per day now.
"Prior to sanctioning the targeted subsidies law, each liter of gasoline was sold at about 10 cent that was the second cheapest among 175 countries, while after implementation of the law, gasoline price in Iran ranks thirteen among those countries," Zaighami said.
According to Zaighami, average oil products consumption in Iran was four times higher than average world consumption adding oil products consumption has reduced by 10 to 12 percent following implementation of targeting subsidies law and in case of a better planning the trend would be continued.
Earlier Iranian minister of petroleum Seyed Masoud Mirkazemi said the country's gasoline production capacity will rise by 20 million liters a day up to the July 2011.
" Currently some upgrading and boosting production capacity projects are being implemented in our oil refineries that will lead to increasing gasoline production capacity by 20 million liters a day up to July 2011," Mirkazemi said.
Before the cuts, subsidies enabled to supply Iranians with cheap gasoline, which cost about 10 cents per liter (38 cents per gallon). Under the reduced subsidies and the rationing, each consumer can buy up to 60 liters (15 gallons) gasoline a month at 40 cents a liter ($1.50 per gallon), while for extra volumes the price is about 70 cents per liter.