Mar 22nd 2007
Oil-rich Iran may have to ration petrol
Reuters
IRANIANS last week celebrated the start of their new year, but alongside the festive goldfish and fireworks displays, 1386 might bring a rise in their petrol bills. After two years of dithering, the government is at last ready to introduce rationing and a price hike to reduce a subsidy that costs the country billions of dollars a year.
Petrol rationing in a country with the world’s second-largest reserves of crude oil might sound slightly strange. But Iran’s big problem is a shortage of refineries; it can only satisfy about 60% of its soaring demand with locally produced petrol. It imports the rest at market prices of about 45 cents a litre—five times what motorists pay at the pumps.
Several contracts have recently been signed as part of a $15 billion upgrade of refining capacity, but the new petrol will not be available for several years. In the meantime the shortage represents a vulnerability at an unfortunate moment: Western countries are looking for ways to press Iran over its nuclear programme and there has been some talk of a future embargo on imported petrol.
The subsidy is anyway costing the country dear at a time when the economy has become the focal point of domestic opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A populist spending spree has fuelled inflation and unbalanced the budget. Cheap petrol also encourages enormous waste as well as smuggling to neighbouring countries where it is more expensive. Officials have suggested that raising the price could help reduce consumption by around 20%.
The fear, though, is of a further increase in inflation if prices are brought, as economists say they should be, up to the cost of domestic production, something like 20 cents a litre. There is also a political problem. Iranians often see cheap petrol as proof that the government is redistributing oil wealth back to the people—one of Mr Ahmadinejad’s big election promises. Raising the price makes economic sense but is the last thing a populist government wants to do.
As a result the government and the Majlis, Iran’s parliament, have spent two years bickering over how to cut the subsidy without upsetting voters. Targeted subsidies and cash gifts to poor motorists have both been considered. But the focus is now on smart cards, which would ration subsidised petrol to a few litres a week, with excess consumption being paid for at the cost of imports.
The subsidised price will also be raised by a couple of cents, but some economists say the rise is too small to make a difference. The Majlis has meanwhile thrown the problem of implementing these plans back to the government with a deadline to introduce the rationing by late May and a promise to import no more than $2.5 billion of petrol over the next year.
The question, as always, is whether this government has the stomach to implement so unpopular a policy. In the past buoyant oil revenues have allowed the government to buy (and subsidise) its way out of political trouble. But with the Majlis spoiling for an economic fight with Mr Ahmadinejad, it looks as though this time he may have to make Iran’s over-enthusiastic motorists pay up.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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