Iran will abolish a motorists’ allowance for heavily subsidized fuel and set a price, the deputy oil minister said on Sunday, as the government moves cautiously to cut back costly handouts. “We have decided that petrol will be sold at a single rate of 1,000 tomans ($0.35) per liter,” Abbas Kazemi was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency, using a common measure of currency equal to 10 rials. President Hassan Rouhani, elected in 2013 on a platform of better economic management, has championed efforts to rationalize pricing and pushed through a modest increase in fuel prices last year. The government is trying to curb subsidies that have led to profligate energy consumption and put a strain on public finances, already squeezed by international sanctions and last year’s drop in oil prices. An Oil Ministry advisor on Saturday suggested that fuel subsidies could be lifted altogether, but […]