Government spokesperson Mohajerani said on Tuesday 28 July that the second-tier subsidised petrol ration falls from 70 litres to 50 litres a month, with the first-tier price held at 3,000 tomans a litre1. The price stays. The volume goes.
Iranian drivers buy fuel in bands: a cheap monthly allowance at the rationed price, then unsubsidised petrol once the allowance runs out. Cutting the second band by 20 litres pushes a taxi driver or a two-car household onto the expensive tier several days earlier each month, which is an income cut that never appears as a price rise.
That design is deliberate and it is recent. The tiered system was rebuilt after the November 2019 unrest, when an overnight increase in the pump price put people on the street within days and the state shut down the national internet to manage what followed. The 2007 rationing scheme had produced petrol-station arson in Tehran on its first night. Both attempts moved a number the public could chant. A quota cut moves supply instead, and it can be reversed quietly if the queues get long.
Oil minister Paknejad disclosed $18bn in wartime oil sales through 10 July, a figure that describes the treasury rather than a driver's tank. Refinery damage at Abadan and Mahshahr constrains what Iran can put through the pumps at the same time the blockade constrains what it can sell abroad. Watching the ration rather than the advertised price is the better read on how tight that has become, because the ration is the variable the government can move without announcing anything to the consumer price index.
