Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 22
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran's average gasoline consumption has surpassed 69 million liters per day in the week to Feb. 20, some 2.758 million liters more compared to preceding week, the oil ministry's official SHANA news agency reported Feb. 22.
Totally some 483 million liters of gasoline were consumed in Iran in the mentioned week, meanwhile the total gasoline consumption stood at 463.7 million during the week to Feb. 14.
Feb. 19 with 78.7 million liters, and Feb. 20 with 60.6 million liters respectively recorded the highest and lowest rate of gasoline consumption in the week.
Iran's average super gasoline consumption in the mentioned week stood at around 28.4 million liters.
The country's gasoline output is currently around 62 million liters, so it needs to import the rest. The Islamic Republic currently only imports Euro-4 gasoline.
The country's total production capacity will reach 96 million liters per day by next fiscal year (to start on March 21), 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. It is banned worldwide to be used for gasoline production.
The administration of President Hassan Rouhani ordered to stop the distribution of substandard gasoline.
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