Taliban Refuses To Buy Iranian Gasoline

The head of Iran’s oil products exporters union admitted that the Taliban will no longer buy gasoline from Iran due to quality issues.

Hamid Hosseini told Iranian news platform Fararu on Monday that Iraq and Afghanistan now buy higher quality gasoline from Uzbekistan and Russia.

In January, the Taliban's National Standards Authority announced that it has returned 26 tankers of fuel to Iran due to quality issues. Iran’s main exports to Afghanistan are gasoline and gasoil, according to a report released by PetroView, an Iranian oil and gas consultancy and research platform. From May 2020 to May 2021, Iran exported about 400,000 tons of fuel to Afghanistan.

“The higher quality of products [from Uzbekistan and Russia] is the reason for the return of gasoline by the Taliban, and these countries [such as Afghanistan] no longer accept products of any quality,” Hosseini said.

Several petrochemical companies and refineries that produce pyrolysis gasoline have been exporting their product to neighboring countries, including Afghanistan for years. The product by itself cannot be used as fuel and must be modified in a process so that it can be used in vehicles.

In April, Afghan officials said that eight projects are underway to increase the standardization process in the country.