The average daily gasoline consumption in Iran has reached 103 million liters, which is an unacceptable figure, the head of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, said.
“The volume of gasoline consumption in the country is at a critical level, as the refineries can produce at most 105 million liters of gasoline per day,” Ali Akbar Nejad-Ali was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
“Every year during fall, the amount of gasoline consumption decreased. However, this year, while the daily gasoline consumption in the summer was nearly 101 million liters, the figure not only declined in the months of fall, but also rose. At certain periods, the figure even reached as high as 105 million liters per day, which is the maximum production capacity in the country,” he added.
According to the official, in 2019, the country's daily gasoline consumption was 72 million liters.
“If the number of cars has increased by 5% in the past three years, the normal gasoline consumption should be 87 million liters per day, but the current figure is much higher, which is unusual and unacceptable,” Nejad-Ali added.
Commenting on the issue, the director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company said, “Every year, one million new cars are added to the country's transportation capacity. On the other hand, there are still a large number of dilapidated cars on the roads and streets. Both factors contribute to the rise in gasoline consumption and make fuel management difficult.”
“The manufactured cars consume much more gasoline than the global standards,” IRNA also quoted Jalil Salari as saying.
If the issue is not addressed properly, the country will face problems supplying adequate amount of gasoline to vehicles and may need to resume import.
Further Rise in Consumption
Gasoline consumption is expected to rise in March 2023 when the Iranian New Year starts and a large number of families embark on holiday trips, because of which the consumption level will further rise by at least 7%.
There is no quick fix for the fuel shortage because plans for building new refineries or manufacturing fuel-efficient cars materialize in the long run.
The most feasible alternative to curb consumption is to accelerate the nationwide plan to convert 1.4 million gasoline-powered public transportation and commercial vehicles to compressed natural gas hybrids, which was launched in 2019.
As per the long-heralded scheme, so far 200,000 million gas-guzzlers have been retrofitted.
If the project was implemented as scheduled, it could save close to 12 million liters of gasoline per day, which is equal to the daily output of Tehran, Shiraz, Lavan, Tabriz and Kermanshah refineries. This is while importing that amount of fuel (12 million liters) would cost NIOC about $6.5 billion per year.
After the plan was approved by the Economic Council in 2019, NIOC started to equip CNG centers with the necessary kits and tanks. The retrofitting process made progress in the first two years but has stumbled in the last 12 months, due largely to economic constraints and the steep fluctuations in forex rates.
