The CEO of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, Karamat Viskarami, presented new information about gasoline consumption in the country at a press conference on October 25, 2026. He announced that from the beginning of September to the sixteenth of this month, an average of 144 million liters of gasoline has been consumed daily in Iran, of which 59 percent was supplied with personal fuel cards and 41 percent with free station cards. This statistic indicates a gap in the country's fuel distribution system that has remained unknown for years.
The Meaning of Transparency in Gasoline Distribution
This information gap was addressed by the experimental implementation of a scheme to identify emergency cards at 250 stations out of approximately 360 stations in Tehran province. According to Viskarami, the goal of this scheme is to allocate fuel optimally and purposefully, as well as to ensure transparency in refueling. He also referred to gasoline consumption statistics, stating that 41 percent of it, equivalent to 59 million liters, was supplied through free station cards, which do not record any identity of the consumers.
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The 59 Million Liter Gap
The difference between personal fuel cards and free station cards is not just in their names. With personal cards, vehicle information, type of usage, station, and volume of withdrawal are precisely recorded in each transaction. In contrast, free cards only record the volume of fuel delivered and leave no identity of the recipients. The result of this asymmetry of information is the daily distribution of tens of millions of liters of subsidized gasoline without any trace of its final consumers.
In the pilot phase at 250 stations in Tehran, irregular cases such as repeated refueling by a single individual have been identified. For example, one person refueled 105 times from one station in a single day, while another individual visited 38 stations and refueled 98 times. These numbers indicate the existence of an organized route for siphoning subsidized gasoline out of the normal consumption cycle.
The Impact of the Three-Tier Structure on Gasoline Consumption
Currently, the country faces a daily deficit of about 10 million liters of gasoline, which is compensated through imports. To address this, the government implemented a three-tier gasoline pricing structure starting from September 8, 2026. This structure includes a first quota of 60 liters at a subsidized rate of 1500 tomans and a second quota of 50 liters at a rate of 3000 tomans. The third or free rate has increased from 5000 tomans to 10000 tomans.
Despite these changes, reports indicate that an increase in the free price without closing leak paths cannot lead to a reduction in consumption. Additionally, preliminary information shows that the share of personal cards in Tehran has increased from 49 percent in October 2025 to 58 percent in October 2026, while gasoline distribution in Tehran province has decreased by about 20 million liters.
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