On Wednesday (2 December), the Mongolian government decided to reduce the price of processed fuel by 50 percent amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The government announced that the reduction would be in force from 3 December to 1 April in order to support livelihoods badly affected by pandemic.

The current price of processed fuel is 150,000 Mongolian tugriks (about USD 52.8) per tonne.

Those who will benefit most from the fuel reduction are those living below the poverty line, especially in Ulaanbaatar, where over half the country’s population of 3.2 millionreside. Around 220,000 households live in the shanty-towns known locally as  ger districts from the Mongolian word for a yurt; these districts have no running water, central heating and an almost non-existent infrastructure. Life there is grim, especially in the winter, when the temperature can fall below below -40 deg C. Mostly located on the hills to the north of the capital, they are plagued by air pollution; previously, Mongolia replaced low-grade coal with processed fuel in Ulaanbaatar in 2019, in order to curb air pollution. Currently, the fuel oil is predominantly used the capital.