Iran's government will try to avoid rationing gasoline from September 23 by seeking to dip into dollar reserves to pay for fuel imports, a member of parliament said on Saturday.
Parliament has cut the budget for gasoline imports in the year to March 2007, prompting the oil minister to say Tehran would have to stop buying in gasoline shipments and start petrol rationing on September 23.
Iran's final decision on how to cope with the budget cut is being keenly awaited by European and Asian gasoline traders who send a gasoline tanker to Iranian quaysides every two days.
Kamal Daneshyar, head of parliament's energy commission, said the government would submit a bill to parliament seeking $4 billion to $4.5 billion to pay for extra imports as a way of side-stepping rationing that could spark social discontent.
"A bill to withdraw a sum of $4 billion to $4.5 billion from the Oil Stabilisation Fund will be submitted to parliament for importing gasoline and diesel in the coming days," he said.
Iran's dollar earnings above budgeted levels go into the Oil Stabilisation Fund which, strictly speaking, is only supposed to be tapped if oil prices become perilously low.
Daneshyar could give no indication of how such a bill would be received by lawmakers. The world's fourth biggest crude exporter has to import about 40 percent of the 70 million litres of gasoline it burns each day owing to a lack of refinery capacity.
Commentators say lavish subsidies that keep petrol at nine cents per litre erode Iran's industrial competitiveness and ensure the Islamic Republic effectively subsidises its neighbours through contraband fuel trading.
Tehran is dangerously polluted and its roads are normally choked by heavy traffic. Although dipping into the currency reserves would cool the political risks, the Central Bank warns against such action. It says all raids on the Oil Stabilisation Fund while oil prices are high could stoke inflation already running at 12.1 percent.
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