Determining Commission Structure of Private Petroleum Products Distribution Firms Based on Proposed Structure of Petroleum Products Market in

Currently, National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company is the exclusive distributor of various petroleum products all over Iran. High price of land in large cities and small amounts of revenue creates a waek competitive environment in which private sector is not motivated enough to invest on construction of gas stations, hence this situation leads to a shortage of gas stations in the country. One of the ways to overcome this insufficiency is to use capacities of private sector in the process of petroleum products distribution. In order to deregulate the market for distribution of petroleum products in the country, it is necessary to reform its structure. However, implementing this change should happen gradually and in different stages. Also, in all stages the government should supervise the execution of the task. In this paper, three stages of restructuring the market for petroleum products distribution in the country has been proposed. The first stage is to creat the necessary conditions for establishment of qualified firms which their duty is to receive petroleum products from oil depots and to distribute the products in filling stations. Because petroleum products in Iran have subsidized prices, it is necessary for the government to determine the commission rate paid to private firms entering this field in a way that their activity is economically viable. In this paper, by considering current and capital costs and using economic engineering- feasibility model proposed by United Nations Industrial Development Organization- and with the help of COMFAR III Expert software, we have calculated the commission rate payable to distribution companies for different values of land prices. Calculation results show that if land price considered to be zero, net commission rate payable to private distribution companies for one liter of petroleum product should be 783 IRRs. In conditions in which the distribution company is owner of either out-of-town or center of province, this number should be 808 and 1153 IRRs respectively. This number for a case in which stations are constructed by the distribution companies in combined locations: centers of provices, other cities and out-of-town stations, is calculated to be 956 IRRs.