The itemised request, as Tajik reporting carried it on 20 August: 2 million tonnes of crude, 150,000 tonnes of petrol, 300,000 of diesel, 100,000 of jet fuel.
The book it would land on is smaller than the request. Tajikistan imported 599,500 tonnes of oil products in January to June, about 90% of them Russian, by the customs service's first deputy head Azim Tursunzoda. Run the half year forward and the annual book is roughly 1.2 million tonnes.
Read as a purchase plan, the structure is lopsided.
Set the refined lines against that: 550,000 tonnes a year, a little under half the current book. The diesel line alone, 300,000 tonnes, would displace about a quarter of the annual book if it replaced Russian tonnes like for like.
The crude line is the strange one. Two million tonnes is nearly 4 times the request's refined half, and nothing in the file says what would process it: no Tajik refinery book that could absorb it has appeared in the reporting we hold.
Read as a purchase plan, the structure is lopsided. Read as an opening position, the shape makes sense: ask for everything, then settle on the diesel line, which answers the real Tajik need this autumn.
Timing sharpens it. Russia has just extended its producers' export ban on diesel through 30 September, and a 90% single-supplier book concentrates policy risk in one government's calendar.
The Iranian side of the file is thin by our own reach. Tehran's English-language outlets serve stale pages; IRNA's front carried no dated Tajik items when read this morning. The Bishkek meeting readout lists sectors, and no tonnes.
What would move this from bid to book: a signed schedule with prices, a named transit route, and a customs print with an Iranian line in it. The monthly customs series is the place to watch.