Reporting snapshot · 23 October 2026 (Asia/Karachi). The rates below are ex-depot prices from OGRA's price publication effective 23 October, so pump prices are higher once dealer margins and secondary freight are added. Because the government reviews prices daily, this is a one-day figure and the next notification can move it again. The component breakdown is OGRA's own arithmetic, not an estimate.
What changed for 23 October
Pakistan’s federal government cut the ex-depot price of petrol by Rs1.60 a litre to Rs377.71 and raised high-speed diesel (HSD) by Rs1.64 to Rs391.75, effective Friday, 23 October. Both figures come from a Petroleum Division notification, reported by The Express Tribune and Geo News, and both appear in OGRA’s price publication effective 23 October 2026.
The two fuels moving in opposite directions is the day’s real story. Geo News listed the previous rates as Rs379.31 for petrol and Rs390.11 for diesel, which means petrol fell about 0.4 percent while diesel rose about 0.4 percent. For a 50-litre tank the petrol change is worth roughly Rs80 before pump margins. The same calculation on diesel works the other way, adding about Rs82.
This is the second consecutive daily revision to split the two fuels. The 22 October notification cut petrol by Rs2.71 and lifted diesel by 31 paisas. KhabarWire’s most recent revision report covered the 20 October prices, when petrol fell Rs5.16 and diesel Rs7.69.
Why petrol and diesel now diverge
OGRA’s publication supplies the answer at the level of individual price components, and it is not simply crude. Petrol is priced off the Platts Arab Gulf Mean average for 92-octane gasoline, which the notification lists at $117.89 a barrel. Diesel is priced off Dubai Crude, listed at $109.47, plus a separate refining spread.
That gap between the two benchmarks is the mechanism behind the divergence. Because gasoline and diesel are refined from different crude slates and carry different crack spreads, a week in which one benchmark eases while the other firms produces a cut in one fuel and a rise in the other — even while the headline Brent price is moving in a single direction. On 22 October Brent rose $3.51, or 3.2 percent, to $112.33 a barrel, The Express Tribune reported, citing Reuters.
The diesel column carries a further local feature. OGRA lists customs duty at Rs15.68 a litre on diesel against Rs26.31 on petrol, and the notification shows an exchange-rate adjustment of zero on diesel but Rs0.18 on petrol. Reading these components is arithmetic on OGRA’s published figures; the notification does not itself state a reason for the divergence.
The Rs85 that does not move
The most useful line in OGRA’s publication is the one that stays still. Both fuels carry a petroleum levy of Rs80 and a climate support levy of Rs5, notified under the Petroleum Product (Petroleum Levy) and Climate Support Levy Ordinance 1961. Combined, that fixed Rs85 is about 22.5 percent of the petrol price and about 21.7 percent of the diesel price.
Because the levy is fixed in rupees while the import cost moves with crude and the rupee, the same Rs85 absorbs a different share of the pump price each week. It also means a crude rally is not passed through one-for-one: the fall in petrol from Rs379.31 to Rs377.71 happened with the levy untouched.
Sales tax is listed at zero on both fuels, which OGRA annotates as a current exemption. The notification does not publish a separate figure for the cost of the government’s Rs100-per-litre relief scheme for motorcycles, rickshaws and small cars, which KhabarWire covered when the scheme began, so its effect on the fiscal position cannot be calculated from these figures.
What the daily mechanism does now
Pakistan moved to daily pricing on 17 July 2026, replacing a weekly cycle that had itself replaced fortnightly revisions. Geo News reported that Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik said the daily rates are based on a seven-day average of international prices, in line with international practice, and that OGRA can notify prices without prior approval from the prime minister or the federal government. Rates notified on a Friday hold through the weekend.
The framework also revises import arrangements for 2026-27: high-speed diesel imports are routed exclusively through Pakistan State Oil, while oil marketing companies may import petrol in line with their market shares, and companies that miss import or upliftment obligations can be denied fresh import permissions for up to nine months. KhabarWire’s July explainer on the new system sets out the original framework. The wider energy picture is collected in the Pakistan Fuel & Energy hub.
What is still uncertain
The immediate unknown is the next notification. Because the formula uses a rolling average, a fresh rise in crude or in freight and insurance costs may not reach the domestic price until later in the week, so today’s petrol cut is not evidence that the trend has turned.
Two further questions stay open. The first is how long the fixed Rs85 levy survives the current shock; it is a political variable, and OGRA’s publication records only what it was on 23 October. The second is the refining spread. Diesel is priced off Dubai crude plus a $38 crack differential, and any widening of that spread — rather than crude itself — would keep diesel rising while petrol eases.
For consumers the immediate result is small and mixed: a modest petrol saving and a diesel increase, with the diesel side more likely to reach households indirectly through freight, agriculture and backup power costs than at the pump itself.
