October 05, 2018
Surging gasoline sales mean that Iran is unable to stop its imports of gasoline—but the high sales are probably due more to the smuggling of gasoline into neighboring states rather than a great rise in driving in Iran.
Gasoline sales in the month that ended August 22 topped 100 million liters per day for the first time ever. In the last Persian year, sales averaged 76 million liters a day.
The country’s gasoline output has reached 70 million liters per day, forcing the country to keep importing around 30 million liters per day of the commodity, although it had fallen to just 6 million last year. Oil Minister Bijan Namdar-Zanganeh announced in April that Iran would cease importing gasoline this month.
Iran’s high gasoline consumption is due to a number of factors, such as low quality cars that guzzle gasoline, cheap prices that encourage waste and smuggling.
Smuggling is very bad because gasoline is so cheap in Iran while very expensive in many neighboring countries. The extent of smuggling is demonstrated by the fact that gasoline sales are very high in provinces that adjoin such countries as Pakistan, where gasoline sells for $2.86 a gallon and Turkey, where it goes for $5.14 a gallon.
In Iran, the price has been 10,000 rials per liter since May 2015. That is around 38 US cents per gallon, assuming 100,000 rials to the US dollar, making smuggling a much more profitable operation than it was just few months ago.