Posted on 10/16/2008 1:41:36 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
Iran’s veteran official in charge of oil refining and imports was dismissed on Tuesday, the latest in a series of senior officials who have been removed from their posts in the country’s vital oil industry.
No reason was given for the removal of Mohammad-Reza Nematzadeh, deputy oil minister in charge of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company, but analysts see change as part of an attempt by President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad to consolidate his influence over the hugely important sector.
Mr Nematzadeh had been responsible for implementing the government’s petrol rationing scheme aimed at curbing over-consumption and galvanising the country against a possible tightening of sanctions.
Earlier this year he raised the price of petrol outside the rationing system to four times the subsidised rate of 1,000 rials (9.9 cents) per litre, one of the lowest in the world. About a third of Iran’s petrol is imported, with the rest produced at home to meet a daily consumption of 70m litres.
Rationing appears to have had little impact on the numbers of vehicles on the streets, but oil officials claim consumption would have increased by 20m litres per day without such restrictions.
The government is seeking to increase its refining capacity, but the prospect of attracting the $20bn (€14.9bn, £11.8bn) needed to do so looks bleak because foreign investment is hampered by sanctions.
The US and its western allies have recently begun discussing the imposition of sanctions on Iran’s petrol imports to exert further pressure on the regime to halt its uranium enrichment programme.
Petrol, which is heavily subsidised, is essential to the lives of many Iranian families, who rely on their cars as a main source of income.
Oil experts suspect the rationing scheme could be brought to an end before the presidential election in June as a pre-election sweetener for voters.
They do not necessarily link this to the removal of Mr Nematzadeh but suggest it is related instead to a government obsession with hiring younger and more flexible managers. “The change is part of a general policy of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad to hire new and young faces to prevent the widening gap between old and young managers,” said Kamal Daneshyar, the former head of parliament’s energy committee.
Nouredin Shahnazi-Zadeh, the new deputy minister, has acquired a high profile in the oil sector by running two big oil refineries in the southern cities of Bandar Abbas and Isfahan, but his reputation falls short of that of his predecessor.
“Nematzadeh is a great oil manager, but Shahnazi-Zadeh is a good employee in the oil industry,” said one analyst.
About a dozen senior managers in the oil industry have been either removed or demoted since the fundamentalist government took office three years ago.
Let the flailing begin.
I think this is how it was supposed to work: Give fuel away at below market prices, and then implement a government rationing plan to stop over consumption. Then fire the bureaucrats when it doesn’t work. Sounds like Obamanomis.
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