The Economic Coordination Committee has approved a 15.5 percent increase in the margin of petroleum dealers on motor gasoline and high speed diesel, raising the margin by Rs. 1.34 per liter to Rs. 9.98 from Rs. 8.64 effective September 1, 2026.
The decision follows a prolonged dispute between petroleum dealers and the government over the implementation of the margin rise. The Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association had announced a nationwide strike from August 15. It was afterwards called off.
When the ECC first approved the increase but its implementation was linked by the federal cabinet to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority’s digitization targets, the dealers’ margin revision had been pending since December 2025.
Petroleum dealers had opposed the condition, arguing that digitization was primarily the responsibility of oil marketing businesses. The latest ECC decision effectively removes the digitization condition from the dealers’ margin increase.
The decision, however, does not change the margin of oil marketing businesses. It remains at Rs. 7.87 per liter. The ECC had previously approved a Rs. 1.22 per liter increase in the OMC margin, with Rs. 0.61 initially proposed for implementation from December 2025 and the remaining increase linked to digitization targets.
Neither component of the proposed OMC margin increase has been implemented so far, with the federal cabinet subsequently linking the full rise to 100 percent digitization.
According to Topline Research, the latest decision could increase the likelihood of the pending OMC margin revision being implemented. Both the dealer and OMC margin revisions were approved under the same summary and were based on CPI indexation for fiscal year 2024 to 25. When it was raised from Rs, the last increase in the OMC margin was implemented in October 2023. 6.00 per liter to Rs. 7.87 per liter. The pending revision has therefore remained outstanding for nearly three years.
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