Car manufacturers are the main culprit behind the wastage of precious gasoline in Iran, the deputy director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company said.
“Domestic automakers have long been producing energy-inefficient gas guzzlers whose mileage is three times more than the global norm [4 liters/100 km], and interestingly nobody dares to stop them,” Ali Ziyar was also reported as saying by ILNA.
People might play a minor role in wasting the valuable energy resources, but car factories have a more prominent function as they design and manufacture low-quality engines and people have no choice but to purchase those clunkers, he added.
The official said NIORDC and other related bodies are obliged to encourage people to consume less, but a majority of individuals are deprived of quality cars whose mileage complies with global norms.
It is regrettable that automakers have shown utter negligence and indifference when it comes to producing energy-efficient vehicles and they really have no concerns about millions of liters of fuel squandered nationwide, which resource can generate billions of dollars in revenues, if exported.
“Surprisingly, newly-produced cars have worse mileage compared to older vehicles and this has exacerbated the critical situation in a country that will not be able to raise its gasoline output over the next five years,” he said.
According to the official, permitting car manufacturers to continue making gas guzzlers is a recipe for disaster and it will further widen the gap between production and consumption.
NIORDC’s fuel has always complied with international standards, but even its gasoline quality has been criticized from time to time. Nevertheless, automakers continue to flood the market with their inefficient products.
The National Iranian Oil Company will need to import gasoline in the near future, if efficient alternative plans like compressed natural gas conversion plans fail to move forward, secretary-general of the Association of Iranian Refining Companies said.
Quick fix
There is no quick fix for the looming fuel shortages because building new refineries or manufacturing fuel-efficient cars are either infeasible or long-term, Nasser Ashouri, secretary-general of the Association of Iranian Refining Companies, said.
“All refineries in Iran are producing at full capacity (110 million liters of gasoline per day) and output cannot rise any further. To meet rapidly growing demand, new facilities must be built,” he added.
The construction of Shahid Soleimani Petro-Refining Plant in Bandar Abbas and Mokran Refinery in Jask Port, both in Hormozgan Province, has started, but estimates show that the projects will come on stream in 2025.
According to the official, if and when the new plants come on stream after three years, they can increase NIOC’s refining capacity by 600,000 barrels per day, but the state-run National Iranian Oil Company should have initiated the plan much earlier, as raising the production level overnight is next to impossible.
Ashouri stressed that the association has long called for rewriting rules to prevent state and private refineries from going bankrupt while providing special loans to refiners to help improve quality.
“The next best option is to accelerate the nationwide plan to convert 1.4 million gasoline-powered public transportation and commercial vehicles to CNG hybrids, which was launched in 2019,” he said.
“Unfortunately, despite its long-term financial and environmental benefits, the CNG conversion venture is moving at a snail’s pace.”
According to Ali Mahmoudian, the head of the Alternative Fuels Union, as per the long-heralded scheme, at least 1 million gas-guzzlers should have been retrofitted by now, but the figure has not exceeded 200,000.
“Even at this pace, the scheme has helped cut gasoline use by almost 1.5 million liters per day and if the government wanted to import the same volume, it would have to spend $500 million per day,” he said.
