Iran Exports First Gasoline Cargo to Afghanistan http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8912240896

Iran has exported the first cargo of gasoline produced inside the country to the neighboring Afghanistan, Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Alireza Zeiqami announced on Tuesday. "We have exported a 1,000-ton cargo of gasoline to Afghanistan this (Iranian year), and we are amidst negotiations to export the second and third cargoes to the country," Zeiqami told FNA. Iranian Oil Minister Massoud Mir-Kazzemi had earlier this year issued the relevant permission for marketing the export of one billion liters of the country's produced gasoline by the end of the Iranian year (March 20). Zeiqami also announced that the country was negotiating with two or three neighboring countries to sign contracts on the export of Iran's gasoline. 

Iran increased its gasoline production after the United States and the European Union started approving their own unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, mostly targeting the country's energy and banking sectors, including a US boycott of gasoline supplies to Iran. After the UN Security Council ratified a fourth sanctions resolution against Iran on June 9, the US Senate passed a legislation to expand sanctions on foreign companies that invest in Iran's energy sector and those foreign companies that sell refined petroleum to Iran or help develop its refining capacity. The bill, which later received the approval of the House of Representatives, said companies that continue to sell gasoline and other refined oil products to Iran would be banned from receiving Energy Department contracts to deliver crude to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The bill was then signed into law by US President Barack Obama. 

But Iran's self-sufficiency in gasoline production made Washington's plots fall flat. Iran boosted gasoline production so much that in September 2010, the country started exporting gasoline. "The first shipment of Iran's gasoline has been exported," Director of the International Affairs Department of the National Iranian Oil Company Ali Asqar Arshi announced at the time. Also in the same month, Mir-Kazzemi announced that the country has increased domestic gasoline production to 66mln liters per day, meaning that Iran no more needs foreign imports. Iran has increased its gasoline production by 50 percentage points to become self-sufficient in the sector, Mir-Kazzemi said at the time. Iran's daily gasoline production has increased from 44 million to over 66 million litters, which means Tehran no longer needs to import gasoline, he added.