Gasoline rationing in Iran has dampened consumption but the world’s fourth biggest crude exporter will still need to import 10-20 million litres a day at current usage rates, an Iranian oil official said on Saturday.
Iran introduced rationing on June 27 to rein in motorists who had pushed consumption to 75 million or more litres a day. Because Iranian refineries could not keep pace, Iran had to rely increasingly heavily on pricey imports.
Importing gasoline is a sensitive issue when world powers are considering imposing a new round of U.N. sanctions on Iran for its refusal to give up nuclear work which the West says is aimed at building atomic bombs. Tehran denies the charge.
Officials have said Iran imported about 40 % of its needs before rationing began. Comments by a senior National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) official published on Saturday by Mehr News Agency suggest the figure was more like 50 %.
“It is forecast that, by continuing the current pace of consumption, we will need to import 10-20 million litres of gasoline per day while this figure last year reached 40 million litres,” NIOC’s deputy director for international affairs, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, was quoted as saying.
He suggested consumption was recovering after a dip.
“The current situation of gasoline consumption shows the shock following rationing is being reduced and consumption is rising,” he said.
Anecdotally, traffic jams on Tehran’s clogged streets initially became lighter after rationing was launched. More recently, traffic has become heavier again though roads are still not quite as busy as they were before rationing.
Private drivers have been allocated 100 litres of fuel a month. Initially, they were allowed to buy fuel up to four months in advance but the government has now extended that to six months to help motorists with summer holiday plans.
Analysts have said allowing drivers to buy quotas so far in advance is discouraging them from economising now and say many motorists may find themselves with no quota left weeks before the six-month period is up.
Rationed fuel is sold at the heavily subsidised price of 1,000 rials (11 U.S. cents) a litre. The government has said it has no plans to offer extra fuel in addition to quotas at higher prices. Analysts say this is encouraging a black market.
As well as being politically sensitive, importing gasoline has been costly because all fuel, whether produced at home or imported, was sold at subsidised rates. Imports cost Iran about $5 billion last year.
In this Iranian year to March 2008, parliament allocated $2.5 billion for imports. Echoing other officials, Khatibi said this would last to the Iranian month that ends on Aug. 22.
“Because this year the price of gasoline had a 10 % increase compared with last year, the $2.5 billion allocated to gasoline imports will be finished sooner,” Khatibi said.
Parliament had also approved $2.5 billion for imports for the last Iranian year to March 2007 but increased the allocation through the year as the import bill exceeded that level.
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