TEHRAN - The director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC)’s compressed natural gas (CNG) programs said 165,000 public transport vehicles have been already turned into dual-fuel cars.

According to Mohammad-Hossein Baqeri, the fund saved through turning the mentioned vehicles into the dual-fuel cars will be expended for the development of CNG industry in the country.

Since the implementation of a program for rationing subsidized gasoline and increasing fuel prices in November 2019, CNG consumption has been rising in the country.

Iranian Oil Ministry considers CNG as the national fuel, therefore, to increase the share of this fuel in the country's energy basket, it was planned to turn public vehicles into dual-fuel cars.

The signing ceremony was attended by the NIORDC Head Jalil Salari, IKCO Managing Director Farshad Moghimi, and Deputy Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Mohsen Salehi-Nia.

Based on the deal, of the mentioned vehicles 40,000 will be taxis and 5,000 are going to be vans.

NIORDC and IKCO had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in December 2019, to add new dual-fuel vehicles to the country’s public transportation fleet.

According to that MOU, 1.46 million dual-fuel vehicles were supposed to be added to the public transportation fleet, reducing the country’s daily gasoline consumption by 10 million liters.

MA/MA