Iranian giant cash-strapped
TEHRAN: Leading crude oil producer Iran has spent in five months its budget allocation of $1.5 billion to import refined petrol and is to ask parliament for a further $1.1bn, a senior oil official said.
The head of the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company's international affairs department, Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, told the official Irna news agency that rising global oil prices were to blame.
A tonne of petrol that cost some $210 in January last year now costs some $460.
Ghanimifard said the extra cash would be expected to last until the end of the current Iranian year on March 20, 2005.
Earlier this month the oil ministry's Shana news agency said Iran faced a faces a growing shortfall in supplies of vehicle fuel, with consumption of heavily-subsidised petrol reaching 70 million litres a day.
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