“Subsidising supplies to keep prices stable on the domestic market.” That was the stated purpose when the State Antimonopoly Service published its ceilings on 15 June: AI-92 at 79.80 to 84.40 som a litre by region, diesel at 93.80 to 97.30, autogas at 45.80 to 48.80, in force from 25 May to 30 September. The cabinet’s resolution 369 of 25 May stood behind the order. Importers would be compensated from the budget for the gap between what they paid and what the state let them charge.
On 1 October, the day after the promise’s formal term ran out, a Bishkek driver paid 87.90 som for a litre of AI-92 at Partnerneft, Rosneft, Jolgo and Bishkek Petroleum, and 86.80 at Red Petroleum. Diesel was 99.90 at all five. Autogas 48.80. AI-95, which no order ever covered, was 109.90.
Set the two price lists side by side. Petrol is 3.50 som above the top of the June ceiling. Diesel is 2.60 above. Autogas sits exactly at the ceiling’s top. None of this happened in September: the ceiling stopped setting prices on 7 July, with 12 weeks of its term still to run.
Three defences of the arrangement circulate. Take them one at a time.
The first is that regulation continues. It does, in a different instrument. Resolution 464 of 7 July moved price control from ceilings to price agreements between the antimonopoly service and the fuel sellers. The agreed prices as of 3 September were 87.90, 99.90 and 48.80, the ranges signed on 11 September run from 87.90 to 92.40 for petrol, from 99.90 to 104.40 for diesel and from 48.80 to 51.80 for autogas, and the control runs to the end of 2026. So the pump price of 1 October is the floor of a range the sellers agreed to, with one chain 1.10 som under it, and the top of that range sits 3 to 8 som above the ceiling the state announced in June. A ceiling the public was told about became a floor the sellers negotiated.
The second argument is that prices are stable. They are: 87.90 has not moved since early September. Stable at a level 4% above June’s top is still stable. What holds it there is the bill.
The third argument answers that: the state pays. The cabinet’s press service said on 29 September that the subsidy per litre runs from 17.16 to 30.88 som on AI-92, from 13.06 to 42.27 on diesel and from 0.46 to 1.40 on liquefied gas, depending on the contract, and runs to 31 December. Divide 30.88 by 87.90 and the state is paying up to 35% of the petrol price at the pump, up to 42% of diesel. In June the subsidy was capped at 20% of the fixed price, by Azattyk’s reading of the order. That cap is not in the September figures.
A ceiling the public was told about became a floor the sellers negotiated.
How much so far? On 25 August the head of the cabinet, Adylbek Kasymaliev, put the sum at about 1 billion som, 956,139,000 som to be exact, “directed” to the oil traders, and said the gap being covered ran at 20 to 40 som a litre. The economy ministry repeated the same 956 million on 21 September. No later total has been published. Between the two dates the state paid the traders at a rate it has not disclosed.
The ministry prefers a different unit. On 1 October it said the support per motorist comes to 4,632 som a month. That is 150 litres at 30.88, and it is a true number: a driver who fills 150 litres of AI-92 is spared 4,632 som. The same ministry says the unsubsidised price would be roughly 111 to 118 som a litre. Read it the other way: the traders are selling at 87.90 what costs 111 to 118, and the difference is wired from the budget. You are the budget.
Who, then, is paying? Every taxpayer without a car pays for every driver with one, through the budget. A pensioner in Naryn who takes the bus pays for the AI-92 in a car she does not own. The traders are paid the gap on their contracts and sell at the agreed floor. The state keeps a price it can point to.
Russia’s diesel export ban for producers runs to 31 October, and its deliveries to Kyrgyzstan rose to more than 72,000 tonnes in August, by Reuters’ count of traders’ data. Supply is not the constraint this autumn. Price is, and the price is being held with public money until 31 December.
The election is on 27 January. Nominations close on 13 November. The subsidy agreements close on 31 December, four weeks before the vote.
Three documents would settle this. The text of the price agreements of 11 September, which the antimonopoly service has described but not published: who signs, for how long, and what a seller pays for breaking the range. The total paid to the traders since 25 August, which the ministry has restated once and updated never. And the 2027 budget’s line for the same subsidy, if there is one. None of the three is published. Until they are, the number you can trust is the one on the pump: 87.90, with up to 30.88 of it yours.