How this site produces its numbers

Petrol, high-speed diesel, kerosene and light diesel oil rates are republished from the notifications issued by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority. Hi-Octane comes from the pump prices Pakistan State Oil publishes, because it is not notified centrally.

We do not average across sources, round figures for neatness, or adjust anything for presentation. If our number differs from the notification, our number is wrong and we want to hear about it.

The site re-checks its source on a short cycle and shows two dates on every rate: the date the notification takes effect, and the time we last confirmed the figure. Both are visible rather than buried, because a price without a date cannot be verified by anyone.

If our source is unreachable, the site says so rather than silently serving a stale number as though it were current.

Nobody outside the decision-making process knows the next notified rate in advance, so treat the estimate as what it is: a calculation, not a leak. What makes it worth showing is that the calculation is OGRA's own published formula — rows A to T — recomputed with the period's average USD/PKR substituted for the exchange-rate row.

The panel states its method on its face, lists what it holds constant, and prints its accuracy record with the number of periods that record covers. That last part matters: a hit rate over one scored period is not a track record, and a percentage without its sample size is the easiest number on a site like this to mislead with.

• It shows a range, not just a single figure — and the range reflects observed exchange-rate movement only. It is not a confidence interval.
• The Platts product assessment, the levies, the margins and the freight component are all held constant, because policy changes cannot be predicted from market data.
• It is labelled an estimate everywhere it appears and never styled to resemble a notified rate.
• It is not investment, trading or business advice, and should not be used to price a contract.

The trip calculator prices a journey using typical real-world fuel economy for each vehicle, drawn from what owners in Pakistan report rather than from manufacturer test-cycle claims. Where a source gives a city and highway split, we lean toward the city figure, because most driving here is urban.

These are starting points, not promises. Load, tyre pressure, air conditioning, traffic and engine condition each move real consumption by several kilometres per litre. The most accurate figure you can use is your own, measured over one tank.

We keep these visibly apart, because conflating them is how a reference site loses its usefulness:

• Measured — notified prices, their effective dates, and the city-by-city Hi-Octane quotes.
• Derived — the tomorrow's estimate, the price composition breakdown, every calculator result, and the running-cost figures.
• Derived figures carry a label wherever they appear, and any that are not yet backed by live data carry a visible badge saying so.

When we get something wrong we change it and we do not quietly backdate it. Reader corrections are the fastest way this site improves, and a report that a figure looks wrong is genuinely welcome even when it turns out we were right — usually the disagreement is two people reading different notification windows, which is worth knowing either way.

Anything that looks off can be sent through the contact page.