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4 comments

[–] ScorpioGlitch 2 points (+2|-0) Edited

Petrol in the country still remains among the cheapest in the world, with the new prices jumping up to a minimum of 15,000 rials per litre of gas – 50 per cent up from the day before. That’s 13 cents a litre, or about 50 cents a gallon

50 CENTS. a gallon.

By the way, tell me again how it is that oil is getting scarce? Because if they're paying a normal rate of 25 cents a gallon, there either aren't very many drivers over there or there's more oil than people are letting on.

[–] PhunkyPlatypus 1 points (+1|-0)

It's still a limited amount of oil. It's the cost of infrastructure to extract, refine and transport that drives the cost up. That, and a lot of economic and political nonsense

[–] jobes 0 points (+0|-0)

While limited, the US, Russia and Venezuela alone could supply the entire world's oil demands for approx 24 years with known reserves that have not been set up for much extraction yet. They have about 800 billion barrels reserve combined and usage is around 34 billion barrels/year for the world.

[–] smallpond 0 points (+0|-0)

Iran relies heavily on automobiles, but obviously cannot pay western prices for fuel due to relative poverty. Whether "50 CENTS. a gallon" (increasing to about $1 per gallon for more than 60 litres per month) seems cheap to you is obviously irrelevant.

The prices hikes are a bit bizarre, as social unrest is almost guaranteed, but I suppose murdering a bunch of desperate citizens is worth squeezing that little bit of profit out of the domestic market.