By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan raised the price of high-speed diesel by 7.15 rupees and petrol by 4.93 rupees a liter, according to a Petroleum Division notification issued on Tuesday, extending a pattern of near-daily increases since the country abandoned weekly fuel pricing in favor of a system that adjusts rates every 24 hours.
The new prices take effect on Wednesday, with diesel rising to 367.21 rupees a liter from 360.06 rupees and petrol climbing to 320.73 rupees from 315.80 rupees. Both remain well below the peaks reached in early April, when war between the US and Iran sent global crude prices spiraling. Diesel hit 520.35 rupees a liter on April 3, and petrol peaked the same day at 458.41 rupees, a run that began in the first week of March from a base of roughly 281 rupees for diesel and 266 rupees for petrol.
The conflict broke out on February 28, and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz — the corridor that had carried roughly a fifth of the world’s energy supplies — sent the shock through markets that Pakistan, reliant on imports for the bulk of its fuel, absorbed within weeks. The government responded first by shifting from fortnightly to weekly price reviews, then, as tensions resurfaced after a fragile June truce between Tehran and Washington collapsed, moved to the daily mechanism now in place.
Under the framework approved by the federal cabinet, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority sets ex-depot prices for petrol and diesel every 24 hours using a seven-day rolling average of international benchmarks, with rates set on Fridays holding through the weekend. OGRA began publishing daily Platts reference prices on July 1 and moved to full daily ex-depot revisions from July 17. The petroleum levy is capped at limits approved by the federal cabinet, and any change to the levy rate requires sign-off from the Finance Division.
Fuel import arrangements for the coming fiscal year have also been revised alongside the pricing shift. High-speed diesel imports will run exclusively through Pakistan State Oil, while other oil marketing companies will import petrol in proportion to their existing market shares. Companies that fail to meet import or upliftment obligations face a nine-month freeze on new import permissions. Kerosene and light diesel oil prices will also now be set daily.
Diesel’s rise carries particular weight for the broader economy, powering the freight trucks, buses, tractors and industrial machinery that move goods and food across the country. Petrol’s more modest increase falls mainly on motorcyclists, rickshaw drivers and car owners — the commuting middle class that has absorbed the bulk of fuel inflation since the war began. Petrol and diesel together account for the overwhelming share of Pakistan’s fuel market, with combined monthly sales of 700,000 to 800,000 tonnes against roughly 10,000 tonnes of monthly kerosene demand.
The increases arrive as Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik tries to hold together a policy that oil marketing companies and independent dealers alike have resisted since its announcement. Nearly 15,000 petrol pump owners represented by the All Pakistan Petrol Pump Owners Association have warned they could suspend operations nationwide if their objections aren’t addressed, and a separate delegation from the Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association met OGRA’s chairman, Masroor Khan, in Karachi on Tuesday to press the same case. The petroleum ministry has scheduled its own sit-down with pump owners for Tuesday afternoon in Islamabad, aimed at dealer commissions, supply-chain frictions and the pricing mechanism itself.
Malik has cast the shift as consumer protection dressed up as bureaucratic reform: publishing the Platts benchmarks alongside a breakdown of every component in the pump price, he has argued, would show the public why increases are unavoidable rather than arbitrary. He has also linked the latest volatility to a fragile truce between Tehran and Washington that collapsed in June, reviving fears of renewed full-scale conflict and further disruption to energy flows through the Strait.
Dealers see something else — a policy that shifts risk onto them without addressing thin margins. Nauman Ali Butt, chairman of the pump owners’ association, has argued that oil marketing companies shouldn’t be allowed to finalize a pricing mechanism without consulting retailers, and that daily volatility could ripple through tanker operations and fuel logistics before it ever reaches a customer paying at the pump. A separate dealer group has pushed for an 8% margin and resisted OGRA’s implementation deadline.
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