Judiciary: A Ship Belonging to a Private Refinery Seized for Smuggling Fuel

The head of the judiciary in Hormozgan province has provided new information regarding "fuel smuggling" in the province, stating that an order has been issued to unload a ship carrying 10 million liters of exported petroleum products. Mojtaba Ghahramani noted that this shipment is suspected to belong to one of the private refineries, adding that immediately after learning about this, a criminal complaint was filed against the refinery, and the ship was also seized. He did not mention the name of the refinery. This judicial official of the Islamic Republic further stated that after further investigations, it became clear that this shipment was inconsistent with the main products of the refinery and the exporting company, as well as the declaration of the goods owner, who had declared it as hydrocarbons. The head of the judiciary in Hormozgan province also mentioned that given the large volume of the shipment and the lack of suitable storage facilities in the province, it was decided to transfer and unload the shipment at the Mahshahr port. Ghahramani had previously reported on January 22 that approximately 70,000 liters of aviation fuel were being stolen daily from a pipeline in this province. He pointed out that over three days, more than 129,000 liters of deficit had been observed from a pipeline; however, he did not explain how such a large volume of daily fuel theft and its prolonged occurrence went unnoticed by local authorities. The low price of fuel in Iran has always been cited as one of the main reasons for its smuggling. Earlier, in September, Ali Shams Ardekani, a member of the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, and Mines, reported that 12 million liters of fuel were being smuggled out of the country daily, adding that the annual value of this volume of smuggled fuel is about 4 billion dollars, of which 3.5 billion dollars is considered "windfall profit." Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are among the countries that are destinations for this smuggled fuel.