ANKARA: Iran aims to increase its petrol imports over the next year, a senior Iranian oil official said yesterday, as the country has stopped using domestic petrochemical plants to produce the fuel.
Imports are a sensitive subject for energy-rich Iran as they have been a target for US sanctions aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear activities. “Iran’s fuel imports will surely increase this (Iranian) year,” said the senior official, who asked not to be named. The Iranian year started on March 21.
“Iran will triple petrol imports in the next Iranian calendar year,” Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency quoted the head of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, Mostafa Kashkouli, as saying on March 4. “It will be around 11 million litres.” However, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said in September that Iran will import several million litres a day of petrol to fill the gap between domestic supply and consumption, according to the Oil Ministry’s SHANA website.
Iran has been trying to side-step sanctions on its oil industry by becoming self-sufficient in petrol production as it produces only 60 percent of its domestic petrol demand and imports the remaining 40 percent from friendly powers. Iran lacks refining capacity—in part due to a lack of foreign investment—forcing it to import 40 percent of its domestic petrol demand. US-led sanctions on foreign companies that help to supply fuel to Iran have scared off Iran’s regular petrol suppliers, hitting what is seen as the Islamic Republic’s Achilles’ heel, its lack of refining capacity.
The National Iranian Oil Co’s director of international affairs in 2010, Ali Asghar Arshi, said Iran had become self-sufficient in producing petrol and also other top oil ministry officials were quoted by Iranian media as saying that “Iran won’t have to rely on imports anymore.”
Many analysts were skeptical, saying it was part of the country’s “political and psychological” propaganda to cope with sanctions.Reuters
