The numbers first. Average retail AI-92 reached 3,040 tugriks a litre on Saturday, about $0.85 at the central bank fix, a rise of 200 tugriks, Xinhua reported from Ulaanbaatar. The purchase cap of 50,000 tugriks per transaction and the odd-even licence plate rule, in force since 4 August, lapsed with the weekend. Drivers still queue. Stations run limited hours on single pumps, and Xinhua quoted one motorist who waited 9 hours.
Supply is moving. In a statement posted Tuesday, the emergency coordination body under industry minister Gongoryn Damdinnyam said 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes of AI-92 have been arriving in Ulaanbaatar daily since 14 August. The same statement threatened distributors who are slow to move fuel with measures up to the loss of their licences.
A capped price that nobody can finance becomes the street price plus 200.
The price story runs on a different clock. On Monday the petroleum authority briefed that importers have run out of cash to order fuel, that a rise of roughly 200 tugriks was unavoidable, and that the AI-92 cap formally stands because the Price Council has not convened. By then the street had already moved by almost exactly that amount.
The sequence explains the month. Through August the cap held because two other things gave way instead. Queues rationed demand in time, and importers financed the gap between cost and cap from their own balance sheets, helped at the border by zeroed excise and customs duties. Rationing ended on Saturday. By the ministry's own account, the importers' cash ended earlier. A capped price that nobody can finance becomes the street price plus 200.
Watch three dates. The Price Council's first sitting will show whether the state ratifies the new price or fights it. The San Petroleum depot in Songinokhairkhan, due to open 20 August, adds storage worth 13 days of the capital's AI-92 demand. September's budget amendment is where the cost of the zeroed fuel taxes lands. The politics are already being priced separately: the minimum wage goes to 1 million tugriks, about $278, from 1 January 2027.