Baku, Azerbaijan, March 29
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
Iranians consumed 25.35 billion liters of gasoline in the past Iranian fiscal year which ended March 20, which is a 1.7-percent rise, compared to the preceding year.
The peak consumption fell on March 19, 2015 when people set off for their New Year holiday trips. On that day Iranians burnt 103.4 million liters of gasoline, IRNA news agency reported March 29.
The lowest consumption day was November 4, 2014 which coincided with the Ashura, a religious mourning holiday in Iran. The consumption registered for that day was 42.4 million liters.
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.
If that trend had continued, by now the gasoline consumption would have hit 150 million liters per day.
Gasoline consumption in capital city of Tehran hit 100.9 million liters in the week to March 6, 800,000 liter less compared to the previous week. The average consumption per day amounted to 14.414 million liters, showing 114,000 liters per day decrease week on week.
The average gasoline consumption during the one-year period was 69.5 million liters per day.
Iran'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 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. It is banned worldwide to be used for gasoline production.