Source: Radio Zamaneh

Iran's oil minister, Massoud Mirkazemi, announced that Iran has now become self-sufficient in its petrol production and is no longer dependent on foreign imports in this regard.

Iranian media report that Massoud Mirkazemi told reporters at a press conference today that Iran is now producing 66 million litres of petrol per day.

He said that Iran was formerly producing 44 million litres a day and in order to supply the domestic demand 20 million litres were imported from abroad.

Last year, about 70 percent of Iran's petrol imports came from the United Arab Emirates and Iran's other suppliers were India and Turkmenistan.

Mirkazemi said: "Since 20 days ago we started increasing production in the production units and finally managed to bring our daily production up to 66.5 million litres per day in the past week."

Iran's daily petrol needs have been marked at 63 million litres by Iran's Fuel Consumption Bureau.

In step with recent sanctions by Western countries against Iran, major oil companies have stopped selling their products to Iran in the past months. Iran's petrol needs were a major point of concern in calculating the effect of these sanctions.

Iran's Minister of Oil added that within three years, Iran will become a petrol exporter.

Iran is currently working on five petrol production projects in its refineries in Tehran, Bandar Abbas, Tabriz, Abadan and Esfahan.

... Payvand News - 09/08/10 ... --