“All refineries are up and running, and petroleum byproducts are transferred to fuel depots in major cities as usual,” Keramat Veiskarami was also quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry’s news portal.
The official reassured that gasoline inventories are full and the fuel is transferred from refineries both via pipelines and tanker trucks.
The National Iranian Oil Company produces 110 million liters of gasoline per day, of which 52% are produced by the Persian Gulf Star Refinery and the rest by Shazand Refinery in Arak, Markazi Province, Tabriz Refinery in East Azarbaijan and Bandar Abbas Refinery in Hormozgan Province.
Daily gasoline use now is about 78 million liters per day.
Despite the claims of NIOPDC’s official, Homayoun Salehi, the head of Gasoline Station Owners Association, argues that fuel storage depots are less than half full because many fuel tanker drivers are not satisfied with their salaries and have either quit their jobs or gone on a strike.
“NIOPDC has faced a shortage of truck drivers to deliver gasoline and diesel to depots,” he added.
Salehi said gas stations should have at least 3,000 liters of gasoline, but many of them lack fuel, due to which they cannot work full capacity and long queues of motorists are formed at filling stations.
Moreover, the number of out-of-service fuel nozzles that cannot be repaired is increasing.
“Many filling stations are facing serious problems as they do not have spare parts to repair the old fuel nozzles” that have outlived their usefulness,” the official added.
Salehi noted that most of the nozzles have been working for a very long time and have been fixed many times but stop functioning after a few hours of repairs.
“Close to 1,000 old nozzles, for example, in southern provinces like Khuzestan are in need of parts that are not available in the domestic market,” he said.
“The situation is the same in other regions, as many pumps are either nearing obsolescence or have gone out of use since 2019 because the much-needed parts cannot be imported due to the US sanctions.”