RoydadNaft –  Lawmakers approved the generalities and details of a double-urgency interpretive bill on Article 1 covering how bitumen is allocated to civil projects.

According to Roydad Naft, the open session of the Islamic Consultative Assembly on Monday, October 5, 2026, took up the civil commission’s report on the interpretive bill on Article 1 of the law on provisions required for annual budget laws, and on row 4-5 of the 1405 (2026–27) budget table. Members approved both the generalities and the details.

The bill asked whether the basis for row 4-5 of the 1405 national budget spending-requirements table is 50% of the exchange market price. The answer adopted was yes.

Before the vote, Mohammad Nasiri, vice chairman of the civil commission, said unjust sanctions and the halt in vacuum-bitumen exports have also disrupted petroleum-product output. Vacuum bitumen can be used more in civil projects in the country’s current position, and passing the bill would give people hope and improve civil works, he said.

Mohammad Ghasemi, speaking for the government against the bill, said the 1405 budget, under clause 32 of Article 1 of the law on provisions required for annual budgets, already sets how bitumen is assigned to executive agencies. The 1405 calculations do not rest on the 1404 budget rule. They are reflected throughout, including in the state-companies annex between the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, refining, and the National Iranian Oil Company, and the calculation base is the daily exchange price.

The Plan and Budget Organization’s budget deputy told parliament the bill is not really an interpretation but a budget amendment, and the government does not agree. Changing it would, in plain financial terms, add about 50 trillion tomans to the government’s debt to refineries.

The government is concerned about civil projects and has coordinated with distribution and refining companies so surplus bitumen goes to civil works, he said. The Plan and Budget Organization promised parliament that, after a committee review, it would finalize by the end of this week how surplus bitumen will be used in civil projects.

Deputy Speaker Hamidreza Haji Babaei replied that the 50 trillion toman item has a budget line and that the table says it is to be carried out under the annual budget.