Govt Increases Petroleum Dealers Margin by 16%

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) has raised the margin for petroleum dealers on motor gasoline and high speed diesel by 15.5 percent, effective September 1, 2026. This increase brings the margin up by Rs. 1.34 per liter to Rs. 9.98 from Rs. 8.64. The decision came after a long dispute between petroleum dealers and the government over the implementation of the margin hike.

The Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association had threatened a nationwide strike, which was later canceled. The dealers had been waiting since December 2025 for the change, when the ECC had initially approved the increase but tied it to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority’s digitization targets. The dealers argued that digitization was mainly the responsibility of oil marketing companies (OMCs).

The ECC has now removed the digitization condition from the dealers’ margin increase. However, the OMC margin remains unchanged at Rs. 7.87 per liter. The pending OMC margin revision, which was initially Rs. 1.22 per liter, has not yet been implemented due to the digitization requirement. Both the dealer and OMC margin revisions were approved based on CPI indexation for the fiscal year 2024 to 25.