By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s petroleum retailers have thrown their support behind a government plan to shift fuel-price adjustments from a weekly to a daily schedule, backing an overhaul designed to tighten transparency in a market officials say has become vulnerable to manipulation and hoarding.
The endorsement emerged from a meeting on Monday between Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik and a delegation from the Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association, led by Chief Adviser Malik Khuda Baksh, according to a statement from the Petroleum Division.
Malik briefed the dealers on the mechanics of the transition. Prices will now be recalculated daily using a seven-day rolling average of international oil prices — the same underlying formula used in the current weekly system, but applied more frequently. The minister said the higher cadence would allow retail prices to track global crude markets more closely, while narrowing the windows in which speculators and hoarders have historically operated.
Pakistan has relied on periodic government-set fuel pricing for years, adjusting rates on a fixed schedule tied to global benchmarks. Officials have grown increasingly concerned that the gap between adjustments creates opportunities for market distortion, particularly during periods of price volatility.
The dealers association also used the meeting to credit the ministry’s handling of a more immediate test: supply continuity during the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which a substantial share of the world’s seaborne oil trade passes. Khuda Baksh said Pakistan avoided the fuel shortages that triggered law-and-order problems in several neighboring countries, crediting timely government intervention for keeping domestic supply chains intact through the disruption.
In exchange for their backing on pricing reform, the dealers pressed the ministry on two fronts. First, they asked to be formally consulted as the government drafts rules governing the operational relationship between oil marketing companies and retail dealers — a regulatory framework that directly shapes how fuel moves from importers to pumps. Second, and more pointedly, they renewed a longstanding demand to raise dealer margins to 8%, arguing the current rate has gone unrevised even as operating costs have risen.
Malik told the delegation both issues would be taken up in follow-on talks, and confirmed that PPDA representatives are scheduled to meet officials from the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority on Tuesday to work through the margin question along with other operational matters raised by dealers.
The minister closed the meeting by thanking the association for what he called constructive engagement, and restated the government’s broader aim of building what he described as a transparent, competitive and consumer-friendly petroleum market.
The PPDA delegation included Khuda Baksh alongside Raja Waseem Kayani, Chaudhry Zafar Elahi, Babar Ali Chaudhary and Chaudhry Faisal Arif.
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