Iranian people are not to blame for gasoline shortage

According to Energy Press, Iran has joined the club of gasoline importers while according to customs statistics, we have exported about 3 billion dollars of gasoline in 2019. In fact, the drop of 6 billion dollars in foreign exchange income from gasoline is half of the increase in the government’s income from oil exports. With the continuation of the current trend, in the next 10 years, Iran will need to import 25 billion dollars of gasoline annually, which is equivalent to half of the country’s oil export capacity.

The lack of proper policy in the field of energy to diversify the fuel basket, creating solutions to reduce prices, lack of proper and rational management and most importantly the abundance of worn out and high consumption cars in the country has caused us to face a large amount of fuel imbalance in the country. An issue that even drew criticism from the Supreme Leader, and in his last meeting with producers and economic activists, he pointed out the issue of energy imbalance in the country and declared that now “we literally have a problem with the fuel issue. Should we, an oil-producing country, import gasoline with all these underground oil resources? does this mean It means that we have a problem in a big issue”.

These reminders drew more attention to the issue of fuel imbalance than in the past. In this regard, in order to scrutinize the reasons for fuel imbalance in the country and pay special attention to the impact of cars on the amount of fuel imbalance, ISNA held a roundtable with the presence of Hashem Orei, a senior expert in the field of energy. Abbas Maleki, a professor of energy policy at Sharif University of Technology and Moqiseh, an expert in the field of industry, held the discussion, which is explained as follows:

– Mr. Urei, please explain first about the state of production and consumption of gasoline in the country and the level of imbalance of this petroleum product.

I was present at the meeting held by the Supreme Leader with economic activists and I was very surprised that he criticized the energy situation in general and gasoline in particular correctly and frankly, so that the next day there was a rumor of the resignation of the oil minister and the next day The President required the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Oil to form a working group and announce the plan and solution to the energy imbalance problem within a month.

There is no energy policy
In the field of energy, it is impossible to go down the same path for 40 years and announce its reform plan in one month. Our biggest problem in the whole field of energy is that we have no plan, there is no energy policy, and the issues that are sometimes raised are only on paper. It is not practical and it is only a task. The second problem is that the same people who brought the matter to this point are responsible for setting up the program and providing solutions. In this regard, I recently sent a letter to the Ministry of Energy and Oil, although I was sure it would not work, but I did it and announced it. It is the right thing to compile a program, but previous people should not program and the opinion of other experts in this field should be used.

I have declared my readiness to be present in this working group, it is necessary for people who are not affiliated with that organization to be present in that meeting so that the facts can be presented. Until about a month ago, the Oil Products Refining and Distribution Company announced that the average daily consumption of gasoline in the country is 116 million liters, after that it was announced that we had a 13% increase in consumption, so that this number reached 132 million liters; Last year during the Eid holidays, consumption reached 114 million liters and this year it is expected to reach 140 million liters per day.

Import of four billion dollars of gasoline and diesel
The production capacity in the best case is about 105 to 115 million liters per day and it is not expected that we will have a significant increase in production in the near future, the gap between consumption and production is increasing and the current problem is a growing imbalance. Time is not in our favor. Every day we have to say goodbye to yesterday in the field of energy. Unfortunately, this issue does not depend only on gasoline and we have this situation in other energy carriers as well.

Last year, we imported 5.5 billion liters of gasoline and diesel worth four billion dollars, and worse than that, the increasing conditions of the forecasts lead to the point that next year the country’s need to import will be double these numbers and the amount of foreign currency that we have to To allocate for the import of gasoline and diesel this year, it is equivalent to two months of total oil exports.

One-sixth of the oil revenue should be allocated to the import of gasoline and diesel, the summary of the situation of gasoline and diesel is summarized in this poem “Captain, don’t be happy with this calm water, woe to the day when it becomes a storm”! My concern is, but I hope with all my heart that this thought is wrong, but the day is conceivable that there will be no gasoline and diesel for cars and no gas for homes.

So far, we are facing a shortage of gas in winter and a shortage of electricity in summer. We stop factories and the active sector of industries in summer due to lack of electricity and in winter due to lack of gas, but my concern is to leave the issue of seasons and this issue exists in all seasons.