Iran jacks up petrol price for major consumers

TEHRAN:

Iran has imposed higher prices at petrol stations for motorists who use more than 160 litres a month, state media reported on Tuesday.

The decision comes amid pressure to scale back fuel subsidies in the country, which has the world’s cheapest petrol, as its economy reels from strains made worse by hefty international sanctions.

From the middle of the Iranian month of Azar (December 6), there will be a third price tier for petrol, under a recent cabinet decision reported on Tuesday by state television.

The first rate will remain unchanged: for the first 60 litres each month, the price will be 15,000 rials (1.3 US cents) per litre, the decision said.

The second rate will also remain unchanged at 30,000 rials (2.6 US cents) a litre for the next 100 litres monthly.

But the statement said that after 160 litres, each additional litre will cost the consumer 50,000 rials (4.3 US cents). “There is no doubt that petrol should be made more expensive,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said last month.