TEHRAN, Aug 25 (AFP) - Leading crude oil producer Iran has spent in five months its budget allocation of 1.5 billion dollars to import refined petrol (gasoline), and is to ask parliament for a further 1.1 billion, a senior oil official was quoted as saying Wednesday.
The head of the state-owned National Iranion Oil Company's international affairs department, Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, told the official IRNA news agency that rising international oil prices were to blame.
A tonne of petrol that cost some 210 dollars in January last year now costs some 460 dollars, he said.
Ghanimifard said the extra cash would be expected to last until the end of the current Iranian year on March 20, 2005.
Earlier this month the oil ministry's Shana news agency said Iran faced a faces a growing shortfall in supplies of vehicle fuel, with consumption of heavily-subsidised petrol reaching 70 million liters a day.
Average consumption has reached 66 million liters, compared with a daily output by Iran's refineries of some 39 million liters, obliging the Islamic Republic to import the rest.
Despite a 23 percent price hike for the current Iranian year, pump prices are still only 800 rials (less than 10 US cents) a liter for standard, lead-free petrol and 1,100 rials for super.
This is close to 2.5 times less than the real price, with the difference being made up by subsidies totalling 3.5 billion dollars a year.
This not only makes for heedless consumption in a country with inadequate public transportation and a large number of old and uneconomical cars, but massive smuggling of fuel to neighboring countries.
The government is unwilling to raise the price again but is considering other steps along with appeals to cut down on fuel use, though it has benefitted from increased revenue from crude exports recently.