The figures are Asia-Plus's own monitoring, published on Wednesday by Pairav Chorshanbiev. AI-92 petrol went from 10.90 somoni a litre in early June to about 13.50 by the end of August, and to 13.70 in the city centre. Diesel went from 11.00 to about 16.50. Liquefied gas ran the other way: it peaked at 6.40 to 6.80 in mid-July and came back to 5.60 to 5.70.
In dollars at the National Bank's rate of 9.248 somoni for Wednesday, a litre of diesel in Dushanbe costs $1.78 and a litre of petrol $1.46. Over the summer that is $0.59 and $0.28 a litre more.
Official statistics say the same thing over a longer window. The Statistics Agency counts diesel up 48.9% between January and July, petrol up 19.2%, liquefied gas up 35.8%, and fuels as a class up 29.6%.
Tajikistan's supply is an import book. In the first half of the year the country brought in 599,500 tonnes of oil products, 91.1% of them from Russia, with Belarus at 2.8%, Turkmenistan at 1.9%, Kazakhstan at 1% and Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan at 0.9% each. Petrol was 243,100 tonnes for $196 million and diesel 300,000 tonnes for $236.8 million. That is $807 a tonne for petrol, up 8.2% on a year earlier, and $789 for diesel, up 4.2%.
Set those two numbers beside the prices the neighbours work with and the order is plain. On 1 September the St Petersburg exchange printed diesel at 71,221 roubles a tonne and AI-92 at 75,477, about $825 and $874 at the Bank of Russia's rate. Kyrgyzstan's decree 579 fixes its subsidy references at $1,050 for diesel and $960 for AI-92. These are 3 different windows: a 6-month customs average, one day's exchange print and a forward reference written into a compensation formula. Still, Dushanbe bought its first-half diesel for less than the Russian exchange asks now and for a quarter less than Bishkek's reference.
What moved in the summer is volume, and it moved in Russia. Asia-Plus cites Reuters: Russian petrol exports to Central Asia and Afghanistan fell 34% in June, and direct deliveries of Russian petrol to Tajikistan roughly halved in July, to 14,100 tonnes. The first-half pace was about 40,500 tonnes of petrol a month from all origins. July's direct Russian tonnage is roughly a third of that.
Moscow's rules explain the direction. The petrol export ban runs to 31 January 2027 for everyone; the diesel ban for non-producers runs to the same date, and on 29 August the government extended the producers' diesel ban to 30 September. Intergovernmental agreements are carved out, which keeps the duty-free line Tajikistan has had with Russia since 2013 open on paper. The carve-out sets no price, though, and it does nothing for tonnes bought outside it.
The Antimonopoly Service explained the June rise by the world market and the country's status as an importer, and by mid-July it put diesel at 15 to 16.70 somoni. As Asia-Plus reports it, the authorities' list of causes adds export restrictions by producer countries and transport costs. None of that is a number.
Here the arithmetic runs out. A first-half average cannot say what an August tonne cost at the border, and no monthly series of import prices has surfaced in the sources CAW read. So the honest statement is narrower than the headline: the average import price of diesel rose 4.2% on the year while the pump rose 50% in 3 months, and the document that would reconcile the two, the import price per tonne for July and August, has not surfaced. Until it does, the margin between border and pump stays unexplained.
Kyrgyzstan chose the other design. Decree 579 of 26 August extended its subsidy to 31 December at fixed references of $960 for AI-92, $1,050 for diesel and $650 for autogas a tonne, with a compensation formula between the reference and the contract cost, retroactive from 1 August; 956.1 million som, about $11 million, had been allocated by 25 August. The pump in Bishkek stood at 87.80 to 87.90 som for AI-92 and 99.90 for diesel in the last week of August, $1.00 and $1.14 a litre at the National Bank's 29 August rate of 87.45. A Dushanbe driver pays 56% more for a litre of diesel than a Bishkek driver.
Still, Dushanbe bought its first-half diesel for less than the Russian exchange asks now and for a quarter less than Bishkek's reference.
Mongolia set its regulated AI-92 price at 3,040 tugrik in mid-August and manages the gap by the book: August's petrol deliveries closed 8.4% short of the orders, and the ministry counts queues at the stations by the day.
The politics of the two designs met in Bishkek on Tuesday night. Opening his talks with Vladimir Putin at 21:00, Sadyr Japarov called energy 'the most pressing area' of the relationship and thanked Moscow for its 'constructive approach to ensuring uninterrupted supplies of petroleum products'. Putin's published reply ran through trade, up 36% in the first half, $1.2 billion of investment stock, the military base as 'an important element of ensuring stability' and 9 Russian-language schools. Fuel is not in his part of the transcript.
Dushanbe's alternative is still an ask. In August it requested 2.55 million tonnes a year from Iran, 2 million of them crude, with 150,000 tonnes of petrol, 300,000 of diesel and 100,000 of jet fuel; Rahmon's meeting with Pezeshkian in Bishkek on Monday produced, in the readout economist.kg carried, a list of sectors and no tonnage.
Two prints decide the autumn's reading: whether Moscow extends the producers' diesel ban past 30 September, and what the customs service says the summer's tonnes cost. The pump will move before either arrives. In a country with no wall, the price is the policy.