Tehran, Iran, Jun.15
Trend:
Some 30,000 liters of smuggled fuel worth more than $24,000 were discovered in Ahwaz, Khuzestan Province Police Chief Haidar Abbaszadeh announced.
"The security forces of the Ghizzaniyeh police station have succeeded to identify a smuggling truck which was to ship fuel to Tehran,” the Chief of Khuzestan Police Haidar Abbaszadeh said, Trend reports citing IRNA.
“Experts estimate the value of the smuggled fuel to be over $28,000,” Chief of Khuzestan Police stated.
Khuzestan's Chief of Police said on June 10 that some 300,000 liters of smuggled fuel worth more than $309,000 were discovered in Ahwaz.
A government spokesman announced that around 11.5 million liters of gasoline is smuggled out of Iran on a daily basis. Ali Adyani, a member of the Iranian Parliament's Energy Committee has quoted various sources as putting the gasoline smuggling figure at ten, 15 and even 20 million liters a day.
Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh ruled out that figure, saying it is logistically impossible to carry that much gasoline across the border every day.
Observers say all of these figures can be true at different times depending on the availability of fuel inside the country and changes in demands in the neighboring countries.
The price of one liter of gasoline in Iran is currently about 8 cents while the price in the destination of smuggled fuel in Turkey, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistanis, Iraq, Afghanistan and Armenia is at least 1.23 US dollar per liter.