Expected Petrol Cut Did Not Arrive; July Ended With Higher Pump Prices

On 31 July Georgian business media reported another round of pump-price increases of 5–10 tetri per litre at major branded chains. Wissol raised all listed grades by 5 tetri the same day; Gulf raised its diesel grades by 10 tetri, in what the report counts as the chain's third price change in July, with petrol grades up 4–11 tetri over the month. Socar had already moved petrol up 8 tetri on 24 July.

The picture was not uniform. For Connect, the source report is internally contradictory — it describes both a small decrease on the Super grade on 29 July and an increase on other grades. We reproduce the listed prices as published and treat the direction of Connect's move as unconfirmed.

In mid-June, major retailers publicly said they expected petrol to become cheaper in early July as global oil prices fell — the announcement our 15 July report treated with the caution it deserved: an expected eight-tetri cut would have helped a budget without changing which car is worth buying.

July delivered the opposite sign. We do not attribute the reversal to any single cause: crude prices, the lari's exchange rate, import logistics and retail margins all moved during the month, and none of them is observable in a pump price alone. What the record shows is simply that the announced direction and the realised direction differed.

For a modelled petrol car driven 15,000 km a year at 8.5 L/100 km — the same assumptions our earlier fuel reports used — annual consumption is 1,275 litres, so a sustained ten-tetri move adds about ₾128 per year. The full March-to-July swing at the chains that raised prices most is several times that, but still small next to the price difference between one used car and the next.

The comparison that matters for fleet buyers is different: Georgia's consolidated public-procurement price for regular petrol was ₾2.85 per litre in July — 12–13% below retail — as our 3 August report on the public fuel-price gap details.

If dearer fuel were reshaping the market for cars themselves, one early place it could show up is the mix of advertised supply. It has not: among July's newly listed cars with a recorded fuel type, hybrids and plug-in hybrids made 24.8%, against 24.6% in June and 24.0–24.6% in the four months before.

Listings measure what sellers offer, not what buyers choose, and a one-month window is short. We will keep tracking the mix in the monthly listing ledger.

Geostat published the July CPI on 3 August; its transport results belong to the separate CPI reaction report rather than this 31 July price-board snapshot. Station boards can change again within days; treat every figure here as dated 31 July 2026.