Reporting snapshot · 28 October 2026 (Asia/Karachi). These are OGRA's ex-depot rates for a single day under a mechanism that reprices fuel every morning, so the figures can move again within a week. The main limitation is that the price publication sets out the arithmetic of every component but gives no reason for the Rs5.71 fall in petrol's customs-duty line that produced the cut.
What changed on 28 October
Pakistan’s federal government cut the ex-depot price of petrol by Rs3.19 a litre to Rs376.06 and raised high-speed diesel by Rs2.25 to Rs398.07, effective Wednesday, 28 October, The Express Tribune reported. Geo News carried the same notification, which sets petrol at Rs376.06 a litre and high-speed diesel at Rs398.07 for the day.
Both figures appear in OGRA’s own price publication for 28 October 2026, published on the regulator’s price-publications page, and its two pages state that the rates take effect at 00:00 hours on 28 October. The revision follows a day in which both fuels were raised, petrol by Rs1.54 and diesel by Rs2.16 for 27 October, and it is the first cut in petrol since 23 October, when OGRA lowered it by Rs1.60 a litre in the revision KhabarWire reported at the time.
For a 50-litre tank, the petrol side saves Rs159.50 and the diesel side adds Rs112.50 at the published prices. Those prices exclude secondary freight, the cost of moving fuel from an oil company’s depot to the pump, though the Rs9.98 dealer margin is already inside them.
Why petrol fell while diesel rose
The clearest answer is in OGRA’s own arithmetic. Comparing the 28 October price publication with the one for 27 October shows something counter-intuitive: both benchmarks went up.
Petrol is priced off the Platts Arab Gulf Mean average for 92-octane gasoline, which OGRA lists at $120.21 a barrel for 28 October, up from $118.41 a day earlier. Diesel is priced off Dubai crude, listed at $113.13 a barrel against $111.83, plus a refining spread held at $38. The rupee also firmed marginally, at Rs276.99 to the dollar against Rs277.01 on OGRA’s rolling average.
So the petrol cut did not come from cheaper oil. It came from two lines below the import cost. OGRA’s customs duty on petrol fell from Rs26.27 to Rs20.56 a litre, worth Rs5.71, while the exchange-rate adjustment, Rs0.82 on 27 October, was zero on 28 October. Those two lines are worth Rs6.53, against a Rs3.33 rise in the cost of petrol landed at Karachi, and together they took the ex-refinery price down from Rs268.49 to Rs265.30 and, with fixed margins unchanged, the published price down by exactly Rs3.19.
Diesel has no equivalent movement. Its customs duty stayed at Rs15.68 a litre, its exchange-rate adjustment stayed at zero and its $38 refining spread did not change. Every rupee of the Rs2.25 increase comes from the $1.30 higher Dubai crude average working through the formula: Rs274.64 a litre of cost and freight in rupees, against Rs272.39 the day before.
OGRA does not state why the two fuels diverged. It notes that the customs-duty figure is calculated from the value of Pakistan State Oil’s cargoes over the last seven working days, or from the average of cargoes imported since January 2026 where there were no imports in that window, so the line can move with the landed value of recent shipments rather than with a tariff decision. Nothing in the document goes further.
The Rs85 that did not move
The most stable line in the publication is the levy. 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. That fixed Rs85 is 22.6 per cent of the petrol price and 21.4 per cent of the diesel price. Sales tax is listed at zero on both fuels, which OGRA annotates as a current exemption.
That block is exactly what the argument running alongside the prices is about. On 27 October, after Jamaat-e-Islami chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the Prime Minister’s House, the government and the party agreed to form a six-member committee to widen the petrol relief scheme and to prepare proposals for a phased reduction in the petroleum levy for the budget, The Express Tribune reported. Rehman said afterwards that the party’s Islamabad march would go ahead in mid-November, as KhabarWire reported. The negotiations over the levy are collected in the Jamaat-e-Islami petroleum levy campaign.
Shehbaz told the party that 12.6 million people had registered for the fuel relief scheme, The Express Tribune reported. The scheme, announced on 13 September, gives Rs100 a litre off petrol for motorcycles, three-wheeler rickshaws and cars with engines up to 800cc, and KhabarWire’s report on the scheme sets out who qualifies and what the discount is worth. The estimate at launch was 11.8 million beneficiaries, with 20 litres a month allowed for two- and three-wheelers and 30 litres for small cars.
Nothing in OGRA’s 28 October publication touches the relief scheme or the levy: the Rs85 lines are identical to the day before, and no separate figure is published for the cost of the relief scheme, so its effect on the fiscal position cannot be read from these numbers.
The rest of the household energy bill this week
The global backdrop moved with the benchmarks. Brent crude fell $2.09, or 1.8 per cent, to $113.72 a barrel by Tuesday evening, The Express Tribune reported, with prices still near six-month highs because of attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure. Geo News reported that October has been the worst month for attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and nearby waterways. Because OGRA prices on a seven-working-day rolling average, a single day’s move in crude reaches the pump price with only a fraction of its size.
Two other decisions this week bear on what households pay for energy. Iranian LPG supplies have resumed through the Taftan and Gabd crossings, with an importer saying around 1,700 containers entered Pakistan in two days and that wholesale and retail rates could fall further, Geo News reported. That matters in a winter when LPG cylinder prices have climbed above Rs10,000. And in the Senate on 27 October, Power Minister Awais Leghari said the government was working to end the practice of charging consumers higher rates for six months when their monthly use passes 200 units, and was considering raising that threshold to 250, Geo News reported.
For diesel, the winter gas position is the number to watch. QatarEnergy declared force majeure in March after damage to its Ras Laffan facility, and Pakistan took its second cargo of the month on 22 October at a contracted $14 to $15 per million British thermal units against a spot market that can reach $30, Geo News reported. Where gas runs short, diesel generators carry more of the load; that is an inference from the fuel market rather than a figure OGRA publishes. The wider winter energy position is collected in the Pakistan Fuel and Energy hub.
What is still uncertain
Three things remain open. The first is the customs-duty line. OGRA explains how it is calculated but not why petrol’s fell by Rs5.71 in a single day, and whether that tracks the landed value of recent cargoes or a tariff change decides how long petrol stays lower.
The second is the next notification. With a rolling average feeding a formula that resets every morning, and crude moving several dollars a barrel on the news, one day’s cut is one day’s cut.
The third is the levy. The committee formed on 27 October will report before the budget, the party’s Islamabad march is now dated for mid-November, and the Rs85 sitting inside each litre is the figure most likely to move before the year ends. Diesel, meanwhile, remains the fuel whose price is most exposed to the refining spread, which OGRA held at $38 a barrel for this notification.
