Iran to 'temporarily' import petrol: report

AFP - Iran is to "temporarily" import petrol to meet its daily consumption needs and compensate for the poor quality of its domestically produced fuel, a top MP told Mehr news agency on Monday.

The oil ministry has decided to import petrol, a commodity targeted by international sanctions imposed on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, said Nasser Soudani, deputy chairman of parliament's energy commission.

"The domestically produced petrol due to its low octane (rating) lacks a desirable quality and has to be mixed" with imported fuel with a better quality, Soudani said.

The decision would also allow the government to meet daily petrol needs, following a decrease in output that he blamed on a May 23 blast at the southern Abadan refinery during a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He insisted the imports would "definitely be temporarily" and likely to come to an end by the end of the Iranian year, by March 2012.

No government sources were immediately available to confirm the report.

In September 2010, Iran's then oil minister Masoud Mirkazemi had announced self-sufficiency in producing petrol with daily production of 66.5 million litres.

The Islamic republic's daily petrol consumption currently stands at 54.8 million litres, according to the oil ministry news agency Shana.

Despite holding around 10 percent of world crude reserves and being the second-largest producer in OPEC, Iran for years imported large volumes of petrol as it lacked refining capacity and struggled with inefficiency.