Azerbaijan, Baku, May 7/ Trend M. Moezzi /
The Speaker of Iran's Majlis (parliament), Ali Larijani, met with the Budget Integration Committee to prevent a reduction in the country's oil budget.
Last year (Iran's solar year ended on March 19), the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) charged the government $34 for every barrel of crude oil used by domestic refineries and paid the rest to the targeted subsidies reform program, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported on Monday.
In its proposed budget for this year, the government says the NIOC must use the 2010 average price of oil and petrol to pay the targeted subsidies program. At that time a barrel of oil was priced at $7 for domestic refinery use. That means the government wants the $27 difference in price per barrel of oil paid to the subsidies program which, in turn, means a drop in the oil industry's budget.
The budget committee has promised to prevent this, and keep the country's oil budget at least the same as last year.