Iran’s Oil Minister: 600,000 Fuel Cards Were Deactivated
With increased monitoring measures in the smart fuel system, the large-scale elimination of invalid fuel cards, mainly belonging to stolen or scrapped cars and motorcycles, has entered a new phase. According to official sources, this plan has not only significantly reduced fuel-related violations but also saved more than one million liters of gasoline daily.
In recent years, the smart fuel system faced a large volume of inactive or suspicious cards, which could not be deactivated due to the lack of complete access by various agencies. This gap led to the continuation of some unauthorized or untraceable withdrawals from the country’s fuel network.
With the connection of police data to the smart system and the start of a comprehensive cross-referencing process, 18 years of accumulated information was corrected, and hundreds of thousands of invalid cards were identified and removed. This action is now introduced as one of the most serious control programs in the fuel sector.
Mohsen Paknejad, the Oil Minister, explained the details of this action, stating that the cards were not lost but that 530,000 fuel cards were deactivated, and this number has now reached close to 600,000 cards.
He mentioned the outcomes of this process, stating that the result of this action is a reduction in consumption by about 12 million liters per day and emphasized that the process of identifying and deactivating suspicious cards will continue.
Abbas Basafa, the manager of the smart fuel system, explained the technical aspects of this plan, stating that in the fourteenth government, and after years, the smart fuel system’s database was updated in cooperation with the police, the headquarters for combating smuggling of goods and currency, and the country’s prosecutor general.
These actions demonstrate that alongside the elimination of unauthorized cards, the technical infrastructure of the system has also been strengthened to meet new needs, and the Ministry of Oil is exercising more control over the fuel consumption network through inter-agency cooperation.
