The rationing scheme, announced on 3 August and running to 15 August, caps a single purchase at 50,000 tugrik, about $14. On 6 August more than 40,000 people bought fuel worth more than that ceiling, and more than 11,000 bought between 10,000 and 40,000 tugrik, on the tax office count reported by ikon.mn. Its reading of the pattern is that buyers get past the cap by making several small purchases at different stations.
About 1,500 people a day buy 10,000 tugrik at a time with tanks already close to full, the same account says. Travellers carrying valid identification can buy without restriction.
B. Dashpurev, state secretary at the ministry of industry and mineral resources, said the ministry is examining a rise from 50,000 to 100,000 tugrik, and that "conditions for the transition could be established starting tomorrow".
The rationing has moved something. Daily sales per station are down by about half. Queuing time has gone from three or four hours to roughly one, traffic flow has improved 30 to 40% according to road traffic police chief C. Galbadrakh, and the fuel importers’ confederation puts the fall in call-centre volume at about 70%.
Queuing time has gone from three or four hours to roughly one.
Supply arithmetic for 7 August: 301 tank cars in transit or unloading, 41 of them carrying AI-92 and 260 diesel. Thirty-three cars of AI-92 arrived from Russia in the previous 24 hours. China has approved 3,000 tonnes of diesel, of which 1,000 tonnes are in Ulaanbaatar and 2,000 staged at the Zamyn-Uud crossing. Minister G. Damdinnyam is travelling to Moscow to discuss raising transport volumes, with a further 6,000 tonnes of petrol ready to ship.
Two station counts do not agree. Dashpurev put 155 filling stations in the capital and 70 in the aimags under supply; the national broadcaster the same day counted 107 stations in Ulaanbaatar dispensing AI-92. Neither account reconciles them.
The general tax office says 162 fuel importers are registered and 142 of them are in arrears, and that their accounts will not be frozen.
Two numbers stay unpublished. One is what the zeroed excise and customs duties, which run to 1 February 2027, cost the budget. The other is what a litre now costs at the pump: the desk searched in Mongolian, Russian and English and found no per-litre price issued since the tax measures took effect.