Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 30
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Gasoline consumption in Iran hit a record high of 103 million liters on March 19.
During the last two days of the past Iranian fiscal year (March 19-20) and the first week of the current year, over 700 million liters of gasoline were consumed in Iran, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on March 29.
Despite measures taken by the administration to curb gasoline consumption, more than 25 billion liters of gasoline were consumed in the country in the past Iranian fiscal year, which ended on March 20, which was a 1.7-percent rise, compared to the preceding year.
Before the implementation of the subsidy reform plan, when the government partially removed subsidies it gave to energy carriers and rationed fuel distribution through fuel cards, Iran's gasoline consumption was growing at a pace of 9 percent every year.
Iran's gasoline output is currently around 62 million liters, so it needs to import the rest. The Islamic Republic only imports Euro-4 gasoline currently.
The country's total production capacity will reach 96 million liters per day in the current Iranian fiscal year (to end March 20, 2016), once the Persian Gulf Star refinery's gasoline production unit comes on stream.
Iran used to import 40 percent of its needed gasoline by 2009. But the international sanctions forced it to produce gasoline domestically by adding lead or some poisonous chemical catalysts such as MTBE to the product. MTBE is a highly poisonous substance, which causes cancer and is banned worldwide for use in gasoline production.
Edited by CN
