Afghanistan has reportedly reduced buying fuel from Iran and has instead started buying it from Russia and Uzbekistan, according to Hamid Hosseini of Iran’s Syndicate of Exporters of Oil Products. He cited the Taliban’s changing preferences as the reason behind the shift in fuel procurement.
“The Taliban no longer want to purchase Iranian petrol,” he said and continued that to obtain petrol with higher technical standards, Iran and Afghanistan have been purchasing their fuel needs from Russia and Uzbekistan, Iranian Media reported.
“The higher quality of products from Russia and Uzbekistan is the reason for the return of gasoline by the Taliban, and Afghanistan and Iraq no longer accept products of any quality,” Hosseini said.
The Iranian official further emphasized that Iran’s export market share has decreased due to the higher quality petrol supplied by other countries. He mentioned that Iran controlled 70% to 90% of the market for oil exports to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The National Standards Authority of the Taliban declared in January that it had sent 26 fuel tankers back to Iran because of quality problems. According to a report from Petro View, an Iranian oil and gas consultancy and research platform, gasoline and gasoil are Iran’s principal exports to Afghanistan. Iran shipped roughly 400,000 tons of petroleum to Afghanistan between May 2020 and May 2021.
As Afghanistan and Iraq attempt to diversify their sources and choose to import higher-quality petrol, the change in petrol suppliers highlights the changing dynamics in the regional fuel market. Iran faces difficulty, underscoring the necessity for the country’s petroleum sector to adapt and look into new export prospects.
