NIOC Imposes Limits on Selling Diesel

Due to the high increase in diesel consumption in thermal power plants over the last few weeks, the National Iranian Oil Company has limited selling diesel on the Iran Energy Exchange, the company’s representative in charge of offering petroleum products in IRENEX, said.
“Supplying power stations with liquefied fuel in winter tops NIOC’s priority list and as soon as their inventories are full and consumption decreases, more diesel will be available to be sold on the energy bourse,” Amirhossein Tebyanian was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
Thermal power plants primarily run on natural gas, but NIOC cuts their supply in cold season as households’ gas consumption soars, he added.
NIOC produces around 120 million liters of diesel per day, of which 100 million liters are burnt domestically and the rest is either exported or delivered to power plants.
“The Oil Ministry started offering oil products, namely gasoline and diesel, on IRENEX in 2020 after the initiative to sell crude oil on the bourse flopped.”
With dwindling oil export revenues due to the new US economic sanctions, the sale of oil byproducts via IRENEX has helped the government to some extent. 
Liquid fuels are mainly derived from fossil fuels and many have a primary role in the transportation sector and the economy. The fuels include gasoline, diesel, kerosene, LPG, propane, butane, jet fuel, methanol, ethanol and butanol.
Tebyanian said close to 30,000 tons of mazut are sold in the energy bourse per month.
While US sanctions on the key oil industry have hurt crude oil exports to a great extent, oil product sales remain strong and generate between $300-$500 million a month, shipping data and Reuters calculations show.
Sanctions so far have not severely affected exports of oil products, primarily fuel oil for power generation and shipping as well as LPG used as cooking gas and petrochemical feed.