Minister stresses Iran's ability to supply gasoline

Speaking to reporters in Sari, the provincial capital city of Iran's Northern province of Mazandaran, Qassemi said Iran would start exporting its gasoline to neighboring countries before the end of the current Iranian year (started on March 20). He added that Iran is currently producing all the gasoline it needs and in addition, it is exporting many other petroleum products. Iran which is the world's fourth-biggest crude oil exporter long depended on imported gasoline for 30 to 40 percent of its consumption, but has now become a net exporter. Iran increased its gasoline production after the United States and the European Union started approving their own unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, mostly targeting the country's energy and banking sectors, including a US boycott of gasoline supplies to Iran. After the UN Security Council ratified a sanctions resolution against Iran on June 9, 2010, the US Senate passed a legislation to expand sanctions on foreign companies that invest in Iran's energy sector and those foreign companies that sell refined petroleum to Iran or help develop its refining capacity. The bill, which later received the approval of the House of Representatives, said companies that continue to sell gasoline and other refined oil products to Iran would be banned from receiving Energy Department contracts to deliver crude to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The bill was then signed into law by US President Barack Obama. But Iran's self-sufficiency in gasoline production made Washington's plots fall flat. Iran boosted gasoline production so much that in September 2010, the country exported its first gasoline consignment to the foreign markets.