TEHRAN – Managing director of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) has said his company is currently the biggest producer and exporter of gasoline in West Asia, Shana reported.

“We are exporting to most of our neighboring countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iraqi Kurdistan,” Alireza Sadeq-Abadi said on the sidelines of a visit to the Iran Oil Show exhibition on Saturday.

“In [the Iranian calendar year] 1396 (ended on March 20, 2018), the production of gasoline in our country was 59 million liters per day; the figure reached 107 million liters per day last year, and today the country’s gasoline production capacity is between 107 to 120 million liters per day,” the official said.

Iran has achieved this success despite the external pressures and hurdles imposed by the U.S. sanctions on the country’s oil industry, Sadeq-Abadi said.

According to the deputy oil minister, the significant increase in the country’s gasoline production and exports comes despite the fact that nearly two years ago Iran was an importer of the strategic product, shipping in 17 million liters per day of gasoline.

Referring to the offering of petroleum products in the country’s energy exchange (known as IRENEX), he explained: "Currently, 120 companies are cooperating with us [on the IRENEX]; If there wasn’t for the energy exchange this volume of sales to neighboring countries would not have been achieved.”

The official further emphasized that informing the public through the energy exchange creates equal conditions and opportunities for transparent competition among the companies active in the field.

Even after the lifting of the sanctions, the offering of petroleum products in the energy exchange should continue, Sadeq-Abadi stressed.

Iran exported over $1.4 billion worth of gasoline in the first seven months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-October 21, 2020).

The country exported nearly $490 million worth of the mentioned commodity during the previous Iranian calendar year 1398 (ended on March 19, 2020).

EF/MA