50 Baghdad gas stations to be 24-hour

BAGHDAD, May 30 (UPI) -- Iraq's Oil Ministry will open 50 gas stations in Baghdad 24 hours a day as the fuel crisis worsens and the oil industry is unable to keep up with demand.

Iraqis wait for hours in line for gas that has skyrocketed in price since the 2003 invasion. Gas was subsidized, but that subsidy must be drawn down, according to terms of the economic structural adjustment program of the International Monetary Fund.

Issam Jihad, spokesman for the ministry, said the 50 stations would begin operating to ease the long lines at the pump, Al-Sabaah reports. He also said security at the stations would be increased as night falls.

McLatchy Newspapers reports licensed gas stations sell usually diluted gas for $1.22 a gallon -- 10 times the pre-war cost for a nation suffering from mass unemployment and violence. For more than $3 a gallon, consumers can purchase gas from the black market.

While Iraq has more oil in the world than every country but Saudi Arabia and Iran, its overworked refineries must battle a lack of investment and steady electricity supply as well as smuggling and attacks in order to serve the population.

So Iraq imports much of its transportation, heating and cooking fuel, though there is still not an adequate supply to serve its citizens.

The Oil Ministry has been in talks with both India and Iran to build four refineries to increase supplies.