"According to foreign-based economist Mehrdad Seyed Asgari in an article on Radio Farda's Persian website, the price of one liter of gasoline in Iran is currently about 8 cents while the price in the destination of smuggled fuel in Turkey, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistanis, Iraq, Afghanistan and Armenia is at least 1.23 US dollar. This means that every liter of smuggled fuel brings in a profit of more than a dollar.
The astonishingly low gasoline price in Iran is because the government subsidizes more than 90 percent of the cost; just the opposite of what many other countries do when they heavily tax fuels to reduce consumption.
The devaluation of the Iranian currency in the past one year has made gasoline at least three times cheaper in dollars. That has made smuggling even a more profitable venture."
Another aspect is that the subsidised price of fuel benefits the upper-middle class:
"Another problem is that this subsidy comes out of the country’s wealth but mainly benefits those who have a car and can afford to drive a lot. The richest 10 percent of the Iranian population benefits from the subsidy 11 times more than the poorest ten percent.
In 2016, 43 percent of Iranian families had gasoline fuelled cars. The other 53 percent do not own a car, so they do not benefit from the gasoline subsidy. The shocking reality is that the richest urban families own at least one car while only one percent of the poorest rural families have a vehicle."
If the aim of the price increase is to redistribute wealth, who is doing the protesting? (Facetiously, I suggest that it might be privileged youth who go cruising the streets at night.)
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-fuel-gasoline-smuggling-san...