As authorities in the country prepared to expand retail sales under a system combining subsidies and international prices, Refinitiv Eikon reported that the fifth cargo of an Iranian flotilla approached the Caribbean Sea and reached Venezuelan waters on Sunday.

Of 1,800 stations in Venezuela, about 240 have remained working since the government announced coronavirus-related lockdown measures in March, which included restrictions on fuel sales due to very low inventories.

More than 1,500 stations nationwide are expected to work in the coming days under the new system, which includes monthly quotas for vehicles and motorcycles, automated sales and monitoring equipment. Despite the price increases, it will cost about $1 to fill a whole tank of a vehicle under the subsidy.

After reaching the quotas, drivers will have to pay internationally indexed prices.

The remaining 200 stations will be supplied by independent companies, so drivers buying at those sites will be charged $0.50 per liter of gasoline and will have to pay in foreign currency.

Lines of drivers began forming at stations in cities including Maracay, Valencia and Caracas in anticipation of the gasoline distribution.

Gasoline has been heavily subsidized in Venezuela, which coupled with hyperinflation in recent years has made it almost free, but acute scarcity has recently encouraged a black market that has forced people to pay at least $2 per liter.

Venezuela’s refineries, which can produce more than 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of fuel, have worked at less than 20-percent capacity in 2020, mainly due to power outages and lack of spare parts.

As US sanctions imposed on Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA have also limited the sources and types of products Venezuela can import, Maduro’s socialist administration this year turned to Iran for refining parts and fuel.

The supply has been criticized by the United States as both nations are under unilateral US sanctions.

Four tankers have already reached their destinations and unloaded their cargoes. Venezuela’s military has escorted each tanker through its exclusive economic zone, with the navy posting images of its ships alongside the Iranian cargoes to show it remains unbowed by pressure.

“This is a war, my dear fellow countrymen who listen to me, a brutal war,” Present Nicolas Maduro said Saturday, adding, the US was “persecuting any company that brings a drop of gasoline to Venezuela.”

The oil industries of Iran and Venezuela are both under US sanctions. Iran is providing its fellow OPEC member up to 1.53 million barrels of gasoline and refining components to help ease an acute shortage, the result of the sanctions.

“Venezuela has the right to buy in the world whatever it wants to buy,” Maduro said. “Fortunately, Venezuela has more friends than people can imagine.”

Washington has threatened governments, seaports, shipping firms and insurers with sanctions if they aid the Iranian supply, US special envoy for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, said on Friday.

Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said his government will use Abrams’ comments as proof in an international case against sanctions.

Reuters and Press TV contributed to this story.