Iran's motorists, whose consumption of petrol is rationed, will be allowed to buy unlimited amounts of gasoline over the New Year holidays but at unsubsidized prices, the oil ministry said.
Iran in June 2007 implemented a long-awaited plan to ration its hugely subsidized gasoline, and now limits gas-guzzling motorists to 120 liters a month at the price of just 1,000 rials (10 cents) a liter.
But Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said late Monday that for the New Year holiday period Iranians would be allowed to buy petrol in excess of this quota for the non-subsidized price of 4,000 rials (40 cents) a liter.
Motorists will be allowed to buy the extra gasoline from one month from Wednesday, he said. Once this period is over, they will again be limited to buying just the cheap but rationed gasoline.
The measure is aimed at helping people over the Iranian New Year (Norouz) holiday period which is traditionally a time when hundreds of thousands of people take to the roads for trips to the provinces.
Iran, OPEC's number two oil producer, decided to ration gasoline to decrease the colossal state subsidies paid for keeping pump prices down to less than a comparable amount of mineral water.
The country lacks the refineries necessary to produce sufficient petrol for its car-loving 71 million population and is forced to spend billions of dollars each year importing petrol from abroad.
It had been hoped that traffic in Tehran - one of the most congested cities in the Middle East - would be reduced as a result of the rationing plan.
But Iranian motorists have displayed their ingenuity by readily finding gasoline on the black market, which is usually priced at around 3-4 times the pump price.
The rationing initially triggered angry protests, with demonstrators torching gas stations and yelling slogans against the government, but these rapidly petered out.