Azerbaijan , Baku, Feb. 26 /Trend, A.Yusifzade/
A member of the Iranian Parliament's Energy Commission Majid Nasseri-Nejad said that the country enjoys the necessary capacity and capabilities to produce high quality gasoline, FNA reported.
"Iran is capable of producing gasoline based on international standards and the quality of the gasoline produced in our petrochemical complexes matches the international standards," Nasseri-Nejad said.
He further noted western sanctions against Iran all throughout the last 33 years after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, and stressed, "Western sanctions have no impact on the progress of the Islamic Republic in different fields."
The lawmaker reminded that the western sanctions and embargoes have rather backfired, saying, "Western sanctions have encouraged Iran to take further steps towards self-sufficiency and as a result of the same sanctions, our needed gasoline is produced domestically."
Last month Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran planned to boost production of gasoline in the country's oil refineries in a bid to satiate domestic needs and further join Gasoline exporters club.
"Iran is due to increase gasoline output by 12 million liters daily by mid March," Ahmadinejad said, addressing the people in the inauguration ceremony of a freeway near Tehran in January.
He also referred to the western countries' failed pressures to ban refined petroleum products including gasoline to Iran, and said the country held a multi-billion-liter stockpile of gasoline.
Ahmadinejad said the country's economic overhaul based on which the government has phased out subsidies has paved the way for saving the gasoline.
"I have ordered the Oil Ministry to export some of the amount, so that countries which imposed sanctions on us will see that we will be exporting petrol."
Also earlier in January, Deputy Head of Iran's Department of Environment Ali Mohammad Shaeri told FNA that the country plans to produce a daily volume of 8 million liters of high quality gasoline and gas oil based on Euro 5 by late May, 2011.
"It was decided that a daily volume of at least 8mln liters of fuel based on Euro 5 standards should be produced and sold at the gas stations," Shaeri said.
"Maximum by the end of June, 2011, the gasoline and gas oil sold to the public will be based on Euro 5, at least in Tehran," Shaeri added.
Iran's daily gasoline production capacity will soon increase by 6.5 million liters once the huge national gasoline production project in the country's Southwestern Abadan refinery comes into stream in February.
"The huge project for increasing the gasoline production capacity of Abadan refinery is on the verge of official inauguration," Managing-Director of Abadan Oil Refinery Company Abdolreza Mehraban told reporters late December, adding that the project is already complete by 90 percent.
Earlier, Iranian minister of petroleum, Seyed Masoud Mirkazemi said the country's gasoline production capacity will rise by 20 million liters a day up to the July 2011.
After the UN Security Council ratified a sanctions resolution against Iran on June 9, the United States and the European Union started approving their own unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, mostly targeting the country's energy and banking sectors, including a US boycott of gasoline supplies to Iran.