Demand for premium gasoline, marketed as ‘super’ in Iran declined 80% in the first 11 months of the current Persian calendar year that ends on March 20 compared to the same period last year, head of Iran Gas Station Owners Union said.
“Due to low demand (around 2 million liters a day), producing premium gasoline is not a priority for the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company,” Asadollah Qolizadeh was quoted as saying by ILNA.
Referring to the shortage of premium gasoline (which has an octane level of 91 as opposed to regular fuel with octane number is 87) at most pumps, the GSOA chief said NIORDC produces limited amounts of this fuel as “few station owners order because it must be sold at unsubsidized prices (14 cents per liter)”.
Each liter of regular gasoline costs 7 cents and most motorists prefer to buy the cheaper fuel and so filling stations are not interested in purchasing it, he said.
“Moreover, evaporation losses of premium gasoline are high and it is not economically feasible to keep it in storage tanks for long periods.”
The NIORDC has said that Shazand Refinery in the central city of Arak, Markazi Province, Persian Gulf Star and Bandar Abbas refineries in southern Hormozgan Province as well as the Isfahan Oil Refining Company have limited their premium gasoline output.
The gasoline is sold in major cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz and Mashhad.
Declining Numbers
Referring to (regular) gasoline consumption, he said sales have declined by 30% in the last 11 months. “Fuel consumption crossed 100 million liters per day in 2019. In 2020 it averaged under 75 ml/d in 2020.”
According to Qolizadeh, the coronavirus plague and extensive lockdowns have hammered the gasoline sector by at least 30%.
“Gasoline sales did not exceed 75 ml/d in the last 11 months. This is while the NIORDC had predicted that in 2020 consumption would top 120 ml/d,” he recalled.
Iranians used 73 million liters of gasoline per day in 2015, which rose by 8% to reach 80 million liters/d in 2016.
Consumption climbed in 2017 to reach 88 million liters/d and NIORDC statistics show that in 2018 and 2019 it exceeded 95 ml/d and 110 ml/d, respectively.
In Iran, the coronavirus outbreak was first reported in Qom last February. Health officials in Tehran up until Friday afternoon confirmed 1.7 million cases of infection and 60,500 deaths.
