{"id":257256,"date":"2026-06-08T20:26:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/?p=257256"},"modified":"2026-06-08T20:26:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:26:47","slug":"al-zantouti-the-value-of-our-fuel-smuggling-annually-exceeds-1-5-times-the-value-of-all-our-car-fuel-consumption-combined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/al-zantouti-the-value-of-our-fuel-smuggling-annually-exceeds-1-5-times-the-value-of-all-our-car-fuel-consumption-combined\/","title":{"rendered":"Al-Zantouti: The Value of Our Fuel Smuggling Annually Exceeds 1.5 Times the Value of All Our Car Fuel Consumption Combined!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Written by financial analyst <strong>Khaled Al-Zantouti<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the highest global average fuel consumption (Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries), which is <strong>800 liters per person annually<\/strong>, if we assume that the number of Libyans is <strong>7.5 million people<\/strong> (including the elderly, infants, men, women, and perhaps even considering possible manipulation of the national number system), then, based on the highest global average, their total annual fuel consumption would be approximately <strong>5.6 billion liters<\/strong>, at a market cost of <strong>85 cents per liter<\/strong>, for a total of about <strong>$4.7 billion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under another assumption, if we suppose that every Libyan family owns <strong>two cars<\/strong>, each consuming <strong>80 liters per week<\/strong>, and assuming there are about <strong>1.5 million Libyan families<\/strong> with an average of <strong>five individuals per family<\/strong>, then total annual consumption would not exceed <strong>5.7 billion liters per year<\/strong>, equivalent to approximately <strong>$4.8 billion<\/strong> based on the real cost price of gasoline (<strong>85 cents per liter<\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This simply means that under all assumptions\u2014whether using the highest global consumption average or the average annual consumption of a Libyan family with two cars and a weekly consumption rate of 80 liters\u2014the actual cost would not exceed <strong>$5 billion annually<\/strong>. In other words, even if gasoline were distributed free of charge to all Libyans (and this is merely a hypothetical assumption), its cost would still be significantly lower than the value of fuel smuggled annually. According to some reliable international statistics, the value of fuel smuggling from Libya reaches <strong>$7 billion annually<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So which is more beneficial: supporting fuel for all Libyans, or allowing a group of smugglers (some of whom are from outside the country) to seize and steal more than <strong>1.5 times<\/strong> what the entire Libyan population consumes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By saying this, we do not deny the importance of regulating subsidies, in line with the experiences of many countries. However, we first call for eliminating smuggling, after which it will be easier to organize subsidies, whether in-kind subsidies or cash subsidies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is not right for our \u201cesteemed traders,\u201d and those who empower them, to insist on abolishing subsidies or immediately shifting to cash subsidies without taking into account many economic, social, and practical considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let us demand that the government\u2014sorry, the two governments, or the governments\u2014eliminate smuggling first, and then move toward organizing subsidies. I find it strange that governments and groups that fight each other with the most advanced weapons and drones are unable to fight smuggling. There must be something behind this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by financial analyst Khaled Al-Zantouti According to the highest global average fuel consumption (Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries), which is 800 liters per person annually, if we assume that the number of Libyans is 7.5 million people (including the elderly, infants, men, women, and perhaps even considering possible manipulation of the national number [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":257257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[683],"tags":[758,613],"class_list":["post-257256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-articles","tag-fuel","tag-libya"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257258,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257256\/revisions\/257258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}