Petrol consumption towards unsustainable development: Iranian case study

摘要

One of the most important economic problems in Iran is petrol consumption. In fact, one litre of petrol in Iran is cheaper than one bottle of drinking water. Every year the government pays a large sum of money for imported petrol as well as petrol subsidies. Thus people consume it in an inefficient manner and petrol smuggling is a very popular job especially near boundaries. In the current Iranian year (21st March 2006-20th March 2007) about seventy million litres of petrol were consumed daily in Iran (the biggest petrol importer in the Middle East). This research reports the trend of petrol consumption during the last two decades and studies different scenarios for making decisions about petrol pricing and consumption. Finally some suggestions are presented for correcting the petrol consumption pattern.