March 26, 2021
The coronavirus has caused gasoline consumption to drop by almost a third, as families have been limited in the travel they could take and in many cases are largely confined to home. Gasoline consumption was rising rapidly in recent years, reaching 110 million liters in the 2019-20 Persian year. The coronavirus struck Iran just before last Now Ruz and soon caused gasoline consumption to plummet. It has been rising in recent weeks but still averaged only 75 million liters a day in the last Persian year, or back to the level of five years ago. The government had a crash program to build refineries producing more gasoline so the country would not be dependent on imports. That effort succeeded just before the coronavirus struck. So, the country now produces far more gasoline than needed and is exporting a lot to neighboring countries.
