Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr.5
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iranians consumed 1.1 billion liters of gasoline during the 14-day vacations of the new Iranian fiscal year (Noruz holidays), which started on March 21.
The highest amount of gasoline consumption was related to April 1 on which 105 million liters of gasoline was consumed, Iran's Fars news agency reported on April 5.
Iranians consumed 25.35 billion liters of gasoline in the past Iranian fiscal year which ended March 20, which was 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.
Most of gasoline volumes were consumed in Tehran, Isfahan, Fars, and Khorasan Razavi provinces, respectively.
Meanwhile, 591 million liters of diesel were consumed during the 14-day vacations, a 28 percent decline year on year.
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.
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.
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