Kerman province began selling petrol at the refinery rate of 872,000 rials a litre at 204 stations from midnight on Wednesday 12 August, and stopped by the following morning1. The provincial governor's development deputy, Ali Asghar Zakeri-Harandi, announced the scheme. Within hours the Kerman branch of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company said it was halted after governor Mohammad Ali Talebi took the matter to national authorities in person2. Subsidised card rates stand, with an extra 40 litres a month at the old 50,000-rial price3.
Put the number where a driver stands. A 50-litre tank at the refinery rate cost 43.6 million rials, about $23, against an Iranian monthly minimum wage of roughly 166 million rials4. That is one tank for a quarter of a month's legal minimum, in a year when Iranian outlets put food inflation near 130 per cent.
The reversal came from the province, not from Tehran, and it came before any protest was reported. Iranian governments have never been able to move the forecourt price quietly: the November 2019 rise brought nationwide protests and a lethal crackdown, and every administration since has priced that memory into the decision. Kerman's officials appear to have run the same calculation inside a single working day.
The national ratchet has been turning for weeks. Tehran cut the second-tier subsidised ration from 70 to 50 litres a month on 28 July, part of a re-tiering that ran alongside the rial's slide to 1,933,000 to the dollar. Kerman marks the limit of that method. A ration can be trimmed from the centre; a forecourt price cannot.
