Since 30 years ago there has hardly been any new gas stations built in Tehran. Then, the capital's population was only three million. The figure is 15 million now and it keeps on rising. The gas stations – according to international standards for a city like Tehran – are only 11 percent of what they should be, said Mohammadreza Nematzadeh, the chief executive officer of the Iranian National Oil Refineries.
For every 3,000 vehicles on the road, there should be one gas station available, the international standards say. That figure for Iran is multiplied by nine; for every 27,000 vehicles there is only one place to fill up the tanks.
"Despite the fact that the gas stations work round the clock, each gas nozzle is pumping 11,000 litters per day. That figure by international standards is 3,000 to 4,000 per each nozzle," Nematzadeh said.
It is no surprise that there has not been a single new gas station built in Tehran in three decades of clerical rule. Last year's oil revenues by the Iranian Central Bank's estimates were over $81bn. The cost of building hundreds of gas stations would certainly be much less than Iran's enormous petro dollars.
The real problem, however, lies with the autocratic rule of the mullahs' and their appetite for building the atomic bomb rather than spending the money on Iranian people.