TEHRAN - Head of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) has said his company plans to reduce the country’s gasoline consumption by 10 million liters per day by promoting CNG consumption, IRIB reported.

Jalil Salari put the country’s current CNG supply capacity at 28 million cubic meters, saying that of this capacity only 20-22 million cubic meters is being used.

According to the official, considering the existing CNG infrastructure the country’s daily gasoline consumption can be currently reduced by at least six million liters, however, issues such as rationing and cheap gasoline prices do not allow this to happen.

Salari further announced the government’s plan for manufacturing 650,000 dual-fuel cars, saying that this program will save the country over 180 million liters of gasoline worth about $80 million annually.

Earlier this month, NIORDC and state-owned Iran Khodro Company (IKCO) signed a $20 million deal to co-manufacture 45,000 dual-fuel vehicles for the country’s public transportation fleet.

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.

Back in May, the Head of NIORDC’s compressed natural gas (CNG) programs Mohammad-Hossein Baqeri said 132,000 public transport vehicles were going to become dual-fueled across the country.

The mentioned vehicles would become dual-fuel under the framework of a program launched back in May 2020, for the promotion of CNG consumption instead of gasoline. The program is aimed at converting over 1.46 million public vehicles into dual-fuel ones.

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, which can increase CNG consumption by 10 mcm per day.

There are currently 2,400 CNG stations across Iran that supply 22 percent of the country’s fuel basket.

EF/MA