Gasoline consumption drops 19mn liters per day: oil ministry

In a time span from November 15 to 24, Iranians consumed 79 million liters of gasoline daily, while their consumption stood at 98 million liters per day from March 21 to November 14, the ministry announced.

Iranians consumed an average level of 75 million liters of gasoline on November 24, the ministry added rejecting all the released unofficial data in the past days.

This is while on Monday, Traffic Police Chief General Kamal Hadianfar informed that following the implementation of rationing gasoline, domestic gasoline consumption has increased. “Consumption in the past two days has increased from 94 million liters to 105 million liters,” the Iranian General said.

On November 13, the Iranian government started rationing of subsidized gasoline and increased fuel prices as it plans to use the revenue for supporting underprivileged families.

According to a statement published by National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, the price for a liter of regular gasoline was increased to 15,000 rials (nearly 35 cents at the official rate of 42,000 rials per dollar) from 10,000 rials and the monthly ration for each passenger car was set at 60 liters. Additional purchases would cost 30,000 rials per liter.

Due to heavy subsidies and devaluation of its currency, Iran has one of the cheapest fuel prices in the world and the country has been fighting rampant fuel smuggling to neighboring countries.

In one of its latest reports dubbed “World Energy Outlook 2018”, the International Energy Agency (IEA) put Iran on top of the list of the world’s countries for energy subsidies. That means Iran holds the first place among the world’s countries in terms of the volume of subsidies which is allocated to energy consumption.

MNA/4781390