Across Malaysia's petrol forecourts, a quiet financial erosion is underway — one where the very act of selling fuel at government-mandated prices costs operators more than it earns them. Bumiputera petrol station operators have brought a structural grievance to public attention: credit card processing fees, calculated as a percentage of pump prices, rise automatically as fuel costs rise, even as operator margins remain flat or shrink. Their appeal to the government is not a cry for subsidy, but a call for systemic fairness — a recognition that a resilient energy supply chain requires viable hu