Iran doubles gasoline exports

Iran exported over $134mln worth of gasoline supplies to foreign, mainly neighboring, countries last year, showing a 100% growth. Armenia, Afghanistan, the UAE, Iraq and Oman were the main target markets of Iran's gasoline supplies in 2011. Afghanistan is the main buyer of Iranian gasoline. Iran's gasoline exports to Afghanistan hit $51.6mln last year. The UAE's import reached $46.6mln, Iraq's portion hit $27.1mln and Oman's share totaled $6.6mln. Iran which is the world's fourth-biggest crude oil exporter long depended on imported gasoline for 30 to 40 percent of its consumption, but has now become a net exporter. Iran increased its gasoline production after the United States and the European Union started approving their own unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, mostly targeting the country's energy and banking sectors, including a US boycott of gasoline supplies to Iran. After the UN Security Council ratified a sanctions resolution against Iran on June 9, 2010, the US Senate passed a legislation to expand sanctions on foreign companies that invest in Iran's energy sector and those foreign companies that sell refined petroleum to Iran or help develop its refining capacity. The bill, which later received the approval of the House of Representatives, said companies that continue to sell gasoline and other refined oil products to Iran would be banned from receiving Energy Department contracts to deliver crude to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The bill was then signed into law by US President Barack Obama. But Iran's self-sufficiency in gasoline production made Washington's plots fall flat. Iran boosted gasoline production so much that in September 2010, the country exported its first gasoline consignment to the foreign markets.