Iran increases gasoline reserves

Iran says its strategic gasoline reserves have climbed by a billion liters, reiterating that sanctions on gasoline sales to Iran will never materialize.

“Iran is not worried about (possible) gasoline sanctions,” Deputy Oil Minister Noureddin Shahnazi-Zadeh told Iran’s Mehr news agency on Tuesday, adding that sanctions on gasoline sales to Iran will never occur as there is no possibility of imposing such sanctions under current conditions.

He added that Iran has put into place certain measures such as increasing gasoline reserves, domestic consumption management and the optimization of potentials and capabilities to counter the effectiveness of any gasoline sales sanction.

On Friday, Shahnazi-Zadeh said the country has plans to develop more refineries as it seeks to become self-sufficient in gasoline.

“By the end of the (Iranian) year 1391 (March 2013), Iran will hopefully become self-sufficient in all oil products,” he said.

Shahnazi-Zadeh, who heads the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company, said there are five development plans in the works which will increase Iran’s gasoline production capacity by 26.5 million liters per day.

Meanwhile, sources close to a United States congressional survey argue that Washington cannot afford to tighten the leash on Iran’s foreign fuel suppliers as it would seriously damage the US economy.

In a survey published on Thursday, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified more than 41 foreign companies that had helped Iran develop its oil and gas sector over the past five years, the New York Times reported.

The sources said that imposing sanctions on the 41 companies would most likely damage the US economy since some of them are major global firms, the prominent Japanese daily Yomiuri reported on Saturday.