Iran oil minister rejects rumors about gasoline smuggling

TEHRAN, Iran, Dec.9

Trend:

There is very little gasoline smuggling in the country, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh told reporters, Trend reports citing SHANA.

“The fact is that there is very little gasoline smuggling, and even though there is a smuggling of diesel, it is not as large as the figures someone claimed,” Bijan Zanganeh said.

"Their intentions is good," the minister said referring to the intentions of some officials who announced the wrong figures.

This is only one of many estimates about the smuggling of gasoline from Iran. On December 19, 2018, a spokesman for Iran's Headquarters to Combat Smuggling said that every day, 11.5 million liters of gasoline was smuggled out of Iran. Ali Adyani, a member of the Iranian Parliament's Energy Committee, has quoted various sources as putting the gasoline smuggling figure at 10, 15 and even 20 million liters a day.

However, Mohammad Hassan Nejad, another member of the committee, says that the smuggled fuel amounts to 22 million liters per day. With a 50 cent per liter profit, the total daily income of the smugglers makes up to 400 trillion rials (over $3 billion) annually, nearly the same amount as the country's annual development budget, he said.