Baku, Azerbaijan, June 21
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran imported 40 million liters of gasoline per day on average over the first two months of the current Iranian fiscal year (March 21-May 21), which was a record high since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Even at times when the daily consumption of gasoline reached 85 million liters per day, the volume of daily imports had not surpassed 5 million liters, Iran's Fars news agency reported on June 21.
Based on official statistics, 1.818 million barrels of crude oil was projected to be delivered to domestic refineries per day, but 1.710 million barrels was delivered, leading to a decline in the domestic production of gasoline and a surge in the imports of gasoline.
The Islamic Republic currently only imports Euro-4 gasoline.
The country's total production capacity will reach 96 million liters per day by March 21, 2015 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.
The administration of President Hassan Rouhani ordered to stop the distribution of substandard gasoline.
Unlike a fall in production of diesel fuel and fuel oil, reserves of the two products have been increased, so the reserves of diesel fuel rose by 972 million liters and hit 2.423 billion liters, mainly due to a rise in the production of natural gas and the supply of gas to power plants instead of liquid fuel.