From 10:00 on 1 October drivers began circling Sukhbaatar Square and blocking its eastern carriageway, Ikon.mn and News.mn reported from the scene. The demand, as Ikon.mn recorded it, was for one man: the protesters said they would stay until G. Damdinnyam, the minister of industry and mineral resources, came out in person and explained himself.
The drivers told News.mn they have queued for petrol for days and nights, cannot get children to school and cannot run their small businesses. Some said filling stations now sell nothing at night and open their pumps at 09:00, a pattern they called organised. Police units stood by, officials asked the drivers to disperse as the rally had no permit, and the number of cars kept growing.
The demand, as Ikon.mn recorded it, was for one man: the protesters said they would stay until G. Damdinnyam, the minister of industry and mineral resources, came out in person and explained himself.
The shortage has been building since July. Filling-station managers told News.mn they were receiving 20% to 30% less fuel than usual, with suppliers citing Russian conditions. On 30 September D. Davaabayar, head of the petroleum department at the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority, put the country's AI-92 stocks at five to six days of normal consumption and said 217 wagons, about 13,000 tonnes, were on their way from Russia.
Russia's restrictions bite on both fuels. Its petrol export ban runs to 31 January 2027, its ban on diesel exports by non-producers to 31 October, and since 28 September the Russian government has restricted the publication of fuel-export data, so Mongolia is waiting on trains whose schedule its suppliers will not print.
By noon the protest had a parliamentary voice. At the Democratic Party caucus briefing in the State Palace, the parliament building, MP L. Munkhbayasgalan went through the government's answer to the shortage line by line. The law on supporting the supply of strategically important goods, passed on 12 December 2025, gave fuel importers ₮500 billion in loans to build storage.
The money comes from Mongolbank through commercial banks at an initial 13.5%. Commercial banks added their risk margin to reach 18%, and the state then bought the rate down to an effective 9% with a ₮20 billion interest subsidy in the 2026 budget. By his account the loans issued so far went to Shunkhlai with ₮30 billion, Petro Khaan ₮10 billion, Shine Erin Oil ₮6 billion, Monsul and Sinchi Oil ₮5.1 billion each, Tes Petroleum and San Petroleum ₮5 billion each, Sod Mongol ₮3.1 billion and NIK ₮116.4 million, about ₮69 billion of the ₮500 billion the law allows.
Mongolia, he said, already has tank capacity for 45 days of consumption, and the subsidised loans are adding room for 14 more. Tanks are a different matter from what is in them: on 30 September the AI-92 in them covered five to six days. Imported petroleum products turn over about $2.5 billion a year, in a market where the state waives import duty and grants tax relief to hold prices down, and he accused the minister of presiding over it while cartels inflated prices.
He also quoted back the minister's own promises since June 2025: a Japanese-backed storage investment, imports from China and South Korea, a refinery at Altanshiree in Dornogovi that would give the country its own diesel and petrol. None of the seven instructions the Khural's standing committee on industrialisation gave the government in January 2025 has been carried out, he said. His conclusion was that holding the minister alone to account would change nothing and that the government as a whole must answer.
The party is collecting signatures on a dismissal motion drawn up by its chairman, O. Tsogtgerel, News.mn reported. No count of signatures has been published.
The minister's answer, as he has given it since June, is storage. On 30 September in Tokyo, Prime Minister N. Uchral met JICA president Tanaka, and the Japanese agency undertook to support the feasibility study for an oil-products storage complex in Ulaanbaatar, Ikon.mn reported, part of a visit that also produced a ¥158.3 billion loan for the Chinggis Khaan airport expansion.
Storage is the government's answer to a structural fact. Mongolia imports almost all its fuel, most of it from Russia, and a 45-day cushion is what stands between a Russian export decision and an empty forecourt. The protesters on the square are arguing about the next five days, the ministry about the next five years.
The numbers that matter arrive at 14:00 Ulaanbaatar time, when the government's fuel-supply headquarters, the emergency body that reports on stocks and deliveries, holds its regular briefing. Stocks in days is the figure to watch, together with how many of the 217 wagons have crossed the border and been unloaded. At the same hour the Khural plenary sits, after a morning session of the Budget Standing Committee.
A dismissal motion needs the chamber, where the Mongolian People's Party holds the majority and the quorum is 64 of 126 members, so the Democratic Party's signatures are a pressure instrument and the count that matters is the majority's. The test for the government is whether the trains and the briefing can get ahead of the queue before the Ulaanbaatar winter does.