Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
About eight million liters of diesel was smuggled from Iran to neighboring countries on a daily basis during the last fiscal year (ended March 20), Ghasem Khorshidi, senior official with the Headquarters for Combating Smuggling of Goods and Foreign Exchange, said.
It is estimated that $1 billion worth of diesel was smuggled abroad during the 12-month period, Khorshidi said, Fars news agency reported May 16.
He further said that the figure indicates huge fall once compared to previous years, adding that in the fiscal year (to March 2014), averagely about 20 million liters of diesel was smuggled abroad per day.
In a yearly basis it amounted to $7 billion, Khorshidi said.
He referred to establishing retail diesel markets in border regions with Afghanistan and Pakistan, as main factor in reducing fuel smuggling from Iran.
The administration sells diesel to Iranian frontiersmen at the price of 26 cents per liter and they export the fuel to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Khorshidi explained.
The procedure is in favor of both frontiersmen and administration, he noted.
It should be noted that each liter of diesel is sold at 10 cents for Iranian customers.
Thanks to this, diesel smuggling has decreased even more in the current fiscal year, Khorshidi said, without unveiling statistics.
Last year Iran announced that retail sales of oil products have been conducted 20 kilometers away from borders in Khorasan Razavi, South Khorasan, and Sistan and Baluchestan provinces, bordering with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Iranian administration also plans to launch gasoline and diesel retail sale centers in Kurdistan province bordering with Iraq.
The Islamic Republic exported 224.1 million liters of diesel to Afghanistan and Central Asian countries in the last fiscal year (ended March 20), Nasser Sajjadi, managing-director of National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, said.
Iran eyes to export 15 million cubic meters of diesel per day during the current fiscal year, Sajjadi said. He added that the country's daily diesel export stood at 9.2 million liters from March 20 to April 24.