Esmail Saghab-Esfahani, a vice president of Iran’s regime, said on Saturday, August 15, that Iran’s daily gasoline consumption is about 135 million liters, while production by refineries and petrochemical plants is estimated at around 121 million liters. According to him, this has created a daily gasoline shortage of 14 to 15 million liters.
He emphasized that the proposed scenarios are no longer merely “solutions” but, in his words, have become a “necessity,” and the government is compelled to choose one of them.
According to the vice president of Masoud Pezeshkian, the president of Iran’s regime, one option is to distribute all domestically produced gasoline at fuel stations and halt supply once reserves are depleted. A second option is to allocate a fixed fuel quota to vehicles and charge any excess consumption at the market rate. Another scenario would allocate gasoline quotas directly to individuals, under which each person would receive 30 liters per month, with family members’ quotas placed under the control of the head of the household.
Saghab-Esfahani also said that the government will likely make a final decision on one of these scenarios within the next 10 to 15 days, describing this period as an opportunity to review and discuss the available options.
The official’s remarks come as rising domestic consumption and the widening gap between gasoline production and demand have once again made fuel rationing and multi-tier pricing one of the country’s major economic issues. Implementing any of these scenarios—particularly increasing the price of non-subsidized gasoline or reducing fuel quotas—could have direct consequences for transportation costs and the prices of goods and services.
