Iran has one of the world's highest gasoline consumption growths and lowest petrol prices.

TEHRAN, Aug. 30--A senior oil industry expert confirmed here on Wednesday that given the excessive gasoline consumption, imports will continue during September-March until a decision is made about the key product.
According to Fars, Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company, told reporters that gasoline consumption rose by 10.5 percent during March-August against the figure for the corresponding period last year.
“This growth rate is very high,“ he said adding that the government has had to import 30 million liters of petrol per day in the period, when consumption amounted to an average daily of 73.5 million liters a day.
He said the country’s gasoline inventory has more than doubled to reach 1.7 billion liters, stressing that once the present refinery projects become operational, daily gasoline production capacity will be augmented by some 40 million liters.
Nematzadeh said that the construction of each refinery will take at least four years, stressing, however, that the Oil Ministry will try its best to complete Bandar Abbas Refinery project in three years as requested by the parliament.
He said that gasoline smart card project’s contractor has failed to meet the commitments and this necessitates continuing fuel import until March 2007.
Nematzadeh had said earlier that public demand for fuel cannot be ignored merely due to uncertainties on petrol issue, stressing that import of gasoline will continue under the circumstances.
He said the company will distribute fuel imported by the NIOC, adding that the country needs to import 30 million liters of gasoline a day. “We will do everything possible to make the required gasoline available,“ he said.
Iran has one of the world’s highest gasoline consumption growths and lowest petrol prices.
Some 40 million liters per day of gasoline is produced in Iran for seven million cars and 7-8 million motorcycles. Demand stands at over 70 million liters a day.
The high-profile fuel smart card project has reportedly progressed by 80-90 percent in the first phase. The second phase will also be completed within six months after the full implementation of the first phase.
Also on Wednesday, Nematzadeh said that Iran is planning to participate in four overseas refinery projects.
“These projects will be implemented in Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Singapore,“ he said, adding that feasibility studies are underway on the implementation of a heavy oil refinery project in Indonesia.
He said a three-billion-dollar refinery project will most likely be finalized with Malaysia, adding that talks continue with the Chinese side on the construction of a 300,000-bpd-capacity refinery in that country’s south.
A 75,000-bpd-capacity refinery will also be constructed in Singapore, once talks produce concrete results, he added.

MAHSHAHR, Khuzestan, Aug. 30--The giant Maroun petrochemical project became operational on Wednesday at a ceremony attended by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reported IRNA.
The chief executive said at the ceremony that the oil industry development could contribute to the progress and development of all other industrial sectors.
He said the world petrochemical demand is on the rise, stressing that the country must attain self-sufficiency in petrochemicals.
Ahmadinejad said after self-sufficiency, petrochemical exports will have to top the industry’s priority list.
The project, titled ’Seventh Olfin’, will produce 1.1 million tons of ethylene, 300,000 tons of polyethylene, 300,000 tons of polypropylene and a number of other key petrochemicals per annum.
The news agency also said that project was launched in 2000 at Mahshahr Special Petrochemical Economic Zone.
The National Iranian Petrochemical Industries Company owns 80 percent stakes of the project and the rest belongs to the Oil Industry Employers’ Welfare and Retirement Fund.
Mahshahr Special Petrochemical Economic Zone is the hub of the country’s petrochemical industry with a total area of 1,700 hectares. The zone was set up in 1998.
Some seven billion dollars worth of foreign and domestic investments have so far been made in the zone.
Iran’s petrochemical industry has improved significantly in recent years. The country has also begun investments in international petrochemical projects.
AP reported last week that Iran will invest US$100 million in a petrochemical plant in the northern Philippine province of Bataan.
Iranian Ambassador to Manila Jalal Kalantari told reporters the petrochemical plant will produce 275,000 tons of high density polyethylene annually for export Southeast Asian countries, and subsequently increase it to 400,000 tons in five years.
Polyethylene can be used in mining, agriculture, marine, chemical storage and food industries.
Kalantari did not mention the value of the production or when the operation will start.

TEHRAN, Aug. 30--Contractors with state organizations have been committed to provide guarantees for observing their employees’ rights.
Announcing this, Mousarreza Servati, a member of the Joint Commission for State Services Management Bill, told Fars that the issue was approved following the commission’s study of the key bill a few days ago.
He said that according to the approval, the task of investigating the scientific and ethical qualifications of employees hired by contractors has been delegated to the state organizations that they are working for.
Servati further said that contactors must be ranked and their qualifications verified by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs as well as the Management and Planning Organization (MPO).
He said if the employees were not paid, provisions have allowed state organizations to pay them from guarantees provided by the contractors.
Thousands of contractual workers lose their jobs each year due to poor job security.
Nahid Jalali, the Iranian workers’ representative in the International Labor Organization (ILO), said earlier this month that the present Labor Law imposes numerous obligations on the labor community, adding that the workers are not satisfied with employment conditions.
However, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Mohammad Jahromi said that the draft amendments to the Labor Law will not be submitted to the government and the parliament as long as it lacks expert views of the workers’ community and the employers.
“We believe that the Labor Law is a comprehensive law which needs to be amended in part in a bid to improve productivity rate,“ he said, adding that in the past 15 years during which the same law has been in force, workers with temporary contracts have not received any attention.

Liquidity growth rate used to have an enormous impact on inflation in previous years, whereas the trend has been reversed in the past two years.

TEHRAN, Aug. 30--Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Davood Danesh-Jafari defended the recent announcement by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) that the inflation rate has come down to 10.3 percent, stressing that the bank has used a scientific model, which is supervised by international organizations, in determining the controversial rate.
According to ISNA, the minister told reporters that the liquidity growth rate used to have an enormous impact on inflation in previous years, whereas the trend has been reversed in the past two years.
“The government has managed to make use of liquidity in the production process and not in meeting its current expenses in the past two years,“ he said, adding that non-oil exports jumped by 50 percent last year against the seven-percent increase in imports, which helped bring down the inflation rate.
The official said the rate is at a favorable level at the moment, stressing, however, that the government is planning to cut it down further together with a projected decline in bank lending rates.
“We have employed certain mechanisms, including an increase in supply (of goods and services) and the repayment of the government’s debts to the banking system,“ he said, putting the liabilities at 43 trillion rials.
Earlier this month, a former economic official said that figures released by the Central Bank of Iran on the inflation are accurate, stressing that prices of 300 items of goods and services are usually studied in the process of determining the key rate.
Saeid Shirkavand, a former deputy minister of economic affairs and finance, said that the people pay attention only to the hikes in the prices of certain goods that they regularly buy, which is why they might question the authenticity of the inflation rate announced by the central bank.
He said the CBI figures cannot be questioned easily as they truly reflect the economic situation.

TEHRAN, Aug. 30--Songoun Copper Complex, the government’s largest project worth 4.58 trillion rials, became operational in the northwestern province of East Azarbaijan on Tuesday, ISNA reported.
Minister of Industries and Mines Ali Reza Tahmasbi said at the ceremony to inaugurate the key project that the targets set in the Third Five-Year Plan (2000-2005) for the copper industry were realized.
He said Iran has the capacity to turn into the region’s economic hub, and hoped that the industrial sector would manage to achieve its objectives by the closing year of the Fourth Plan in 2010.
The minister further said efforts should be made to explore small mines to meet the ever-increasing demand for raw materials, adding that some 440,000 tons of cathode copper should be produced by 2010.
On the Comprehensive Copper Plan, the minister said that the plan, which covers the second phase of Songoun copper concentrate plant, mill and refinery, was submitted to the Economy Council.
“According to the latest estimates, the mine’s deposit is as high as 806 million tons of copper ore,“ he said.
In terms of copper production, Iran ranks sixth in Asia and 22nd in the world. Iran’s copper production currently stands at 245,000 tons annually while the amount of copper ore mined per annum is 15 million tons.
Mineral production in the year to March 2006 is set to increase by 10 percent from last year’s 150 million tons. Some $186 million worth of minerals was exported in March 2004.

TEHRAN, Aug. 30--A senior telecoms industry official said that the national oil telecommunications network is rapidly growing, stressing that the major fiber optic project, which became operational on Wednesday, will play a crucial role in the key sector.
According to ILNA, Mahmoud Emamzadeh, managing director of Iran Oil Pipeline and Telecommunications Company, further said that the oil telecommunications network is one of the country’s oldest telecoms systems, adding that the network has to be renovated and modernized.
“We need to upgrade technologies used in our control systems,“ he said, adding that the company is planning to establish a number of new telecoms stations along the new oil pipelines.
“Uninterrupted digital radio communications are the outcome of this fiber optic project,“ he said.
The oil industry telecoms networks include radio, fiber optic, cellular phone and fixed phone networks.
The 970-kilometer Tehran-Ahvaz fiber optic line became operational on Wednesday.
There are 60,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables in Iran, which provides a suitable ground for developing digital communications and electronic banking in the country.
The national fiber optic network will expand by 15,000 kilometers by the closing year of the Fourth Five-Year Plan (2005-2010).
Iran has formed specialized working groups to help reinforce digital communications infrastructure and boost network security.

TEHRAN, Aug. 30--The 17th Seminar on Islamic Banking opened here on Wednesday.
According to Moj, Mohammad Tabibian, who heads the High Banking Institute, said 20 major issues had been addressed in the past 16 rounds of the seminar.
“Three books have been compiled for this seminar, containing dissertation papers on banking system, reports on the country’s banking system performance as well as (summaries of) articles to be represented at the current conference,“ he added, according to IRNA.
Meanwhile, a member of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Gholam Reza Rezvani said at the seminar that Iran is proud of its usury-free banking system. This, he said, is to the benefit of both bank customers and investors.
The senior cleric said that investors deposit their savings in banks, which invest them in economic activities by proxy.
“Our banking structure is different from those of the other banking systems worldwide,“ he said, stressing that in Islamic banking, banks are trusted by investors for extending capital in different forms to applicants.

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 30--Iranian businessmen in Georgia discussed their problems and difficulties with Iran’s ambassador on Monday evening, IRNA said.
At the meeting which was also attended by a number of Iranian truck drivers, ways of boosting economic cooperation between Iran and Georgia were discussed with Iranian Ambassador to Tbilisi Mojtaba Damirchi.
He praised Iranian merchants and drivers for their contribution to strengthening ’the foundations of such cooperation’, and the benefits to the country from their activities.
He pointed to the need to open up new markets for Iranian goods and services in Central Asia, adding that increased demand for Iranian goods and services can contribute to solving unemployment in Iran.
The ambassador further announced the embassy’s readiness to seek ways to upgrade cooperation between businessmen of the two countries and solve the problems. He urged Iranian businessmen to include precise, long-term planning in their business strategies.
The businessmen, while thanking Ambassador Damirchi for the embassy’s concern about their problems, gave details of current difficulties they face and asked the embassy to help solve them.
Rapid changes in Georgia’s customs and tax laws in recent months as well as the obstacles and problems the businessmen face in transiting goods through the Azerbaijan Republic were also discussed at the meeting.
Iranian drivers present at the meeting complained about the exorbitant bribes extort from them by Azerbaijan Republic customs officials and border guards on goods crossing Azeri territory en route to Georgia.