Yes, Iran does refine some of its own oil but not enough. The leadership there called for increases in gasoline production a few weeks ago, but that is most likely a struggle for them. Large refinery construction projects aren't cheap.
Oops. I intended to put this in "Extended News" instead of Free Republic. ...many thanks, if you would/could take it out of Free Republic and put it in Extended News.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
From ... http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/populist
"populist:
n : an advocate of democratic principles"
"democracy:
noun
1 [U] the belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves"
The Communist/Socialists and their enablers keep playing the same old tired song.
Just goes to show how stupid their government is. First of all, since the state owns the oil it makes no sense that they don't also refine it. It's stupid to export oil to France and then have it reimported as gasoline.
Of course, it's also stupid to subsidize it, as it discourages effeciency and increases dependency. It's also stupid not to let private enterprise, in a competitive environment, manage the resources.
Neither are turbomolecular centrifuges and diffusion plants for UF6, but they do not seem to have a problem with that..
They know gasoline sanctions are coming anyway.
Well, well. I've read an awful lot about the situation with Iran but never came across that piece of information before. It sounds like 'embargo' could cut two ways. I wonder how much reserves they have and how long it could take them to start hurting as well if the Straits of Hormuz were blocked.
This goes a long way in explaining why their head nutjob has been practically begging us to attack them for a couple of months now -- so he could have blamed rationing &c on us. Off by a couple of months, tsk tsk.