With cheap gasoline scarce, Venezuelans can buy at a premium

President Nicolás Muro said that starting Monday Venezuelans will be able to buy gasoline at international market prices, marking a historic break in socialist country's practice of having world's cheapest fuel.

Across nation, 200 filling stations will allow drivers to fuel up for equivalent of 50 cents a liter, or $1.90 a gallon. Venezuelans will also be able to buy a limited amount of subsidized gasoline each month, paying $0.025 a liter, less than a penny a gallon.

government will continue to pay for all fuel used by public transportation, Muro said.

“ time has come to move toward a new policy, toward a new rmality, toward a new situation," Muro said in a Saturday state TV brocast, calling it a step to “regularizing” costs.

Venezuela has world’s largest underground oil reserves, but it has been forced to buy fuel from Iran to bridge deep shorts, unable to pump crude from ground and turn it into gasoline.

last of five Iranian tankers is approaching Venezuela's coast, but experts say that even those shipments will supply nation's drivers for only a few weeks. Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA is also attempting to restart gasoline production with Iran's help.

Muro accused “imperialist” United States for leing an ecomic war against Venezuela, while Muro’s critics say years of corruption and mismanment by socialist government led to scarcities.

Fuel shorts have plagued nation for years, but scarcity recently has even hit capital of Caracas, sparking mile-long lines at filling stations that last for days.

Muro said days earlier that he h appointed a team to consider gasoline prices. Venezuela paid in dollars for Iranian gasoline, Muro said, asking for nation's support in this transition.

Tampering with fuel prices in past has been an explosive subject. In 1989, riots broke out leing to nearly 300 deaths when n-President Carlos Andrés Pérez ordered an increase.

It remains unclear how new system will work and wher government can provide eugh gasoline to meet demands.

Opposition leer Juan Guaidó was among critics speaking out Sunday against new price structure. He called it ar “mockery by dictatorship,” calling on Venezuelans to "respond with force."

Guaidó in early 2019 launched a campaign to oust Muro with backing from United States among nearly 60 nations. Muro, however, remains in power of state institutions.