Crude oil sales and gasoline imports: Signs of Iran’s chronic economic illness

According to Energy Press, Hedayatollah Khademi, an energy expert, said in an interview with this media outlet that Iran’s economy is still based on selling raw materials: “We are a country that sells both crude oil and imports gasoline. Sometimes, we don’t do this for short periods, but overall, instead of trying to convert oil into more valuable products, we sell it raw and cheap, and that’s what we are happy with.”
He continued: “Other countries have taken a different path. No matter how much oil China has, it buys several times more of it from abroad to convert it into valuable goods. The United States, despite producing 10 million barrels of oil daily, buys a few million more barrels to convert it into final products and export it. But we even import needles and shovel handles.”
Khademi described this situation as the result of a sick economy and said: “This is a sick, complicated, and cancerous economy that no one is taking action to cure.” The country needs managers who are clean-handed, have a heart for national interests, and think about the future.
Referring to other crises, he added: We have about 100 times more water reserves than Saudi Arabia, but look at how our water situation has become. We have destroyed all the water we have extracted from the ground. The same goes for electricity. I warned in parliament 10 years ago that although electricity production at that time was 75,000 megawatts and peak consumption was 70,000 megawatts, without planning, we will face a crisis in a few years. Today, we see that the country has been worn out in all areas of infrastructure and economy.
Small managers in big positions have led the country down the hill
He considered one of the main factors of the chaos to be the appointment of small people in big positions and said: In the competitive world, they take advantage of the moment, but our country is closed. Instead of shrinking, the government is constantly getting bigger and the country’s resources are being used to pay its own salaries and expenses. We have not yet decided which direction we want to go. If the expansion is to the right, we go the opposite way, to the left.