Daily Fuel Smuggling of “11 Million Liters” from Iran Last Year

The head of Iran’s central headquarters for combating goods and currency smuggling says that based on estimates, an average of 11 million liters of fuel were smuggled out of the country daily last year, and with measures that were adopted, this figure decreased to 8 million liters per day by the end of last year.

According to the Fars News Agency, Ali Movidi Khorramabadi stated that the phenomenon of fuel smuggling has persisted in the country for dozens of reasons.

He said that as long as the price debate inside the country does not reach conventional levels, there is always a possibility of fuel smuggling occurring.

The value of the dollar against the Iranian rial has risen from 4,700 tomans at the beginning of last year to 13,000 tomans to date, and has increased the price gap for gasoline and other fuels inside and outside the country.

Based on a report recently released by the International Energy Agency on gasoline prices worldwide, Iran offers the world’s cheapest gasoline, which is 6 to 10 times cheaper than neighboring countries, a factor that has served as an incentive for fuel smuggling to neighbors, particularly Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Iranian officials have provided contradictory statistics regarding the extent of fuel smuggling. While last summer the government’s information base released a short clip stating that the amount of fuel smuggled out of Iran was 20 to 40 million liters per day, the spokesman of the goods and currency smuggling combat headquarters stated in December of that year that daily fuel smuggling out of the country was 11.5 million liters.

This is while according to Bijan Zanganeh, Iran’s oil minister, the amount of gasoline and diesel smuggling in Iran cannot be “more than four or five million liters per day”.

Source: Radio Farda