Pakistan admits oil reserves weakness

Oil storage sounds boring — until a shipping shock turns it into national insurance. That is basically what Pakistan just admitted it does not really have. Petroleum minister Ali Pervaiz Malik said the country has no true strategic petroleum reserve, only limited working stocks, and that matters because Pakistan imports a big share of its fuel and sits downstream from any disruption around the Gulf. The news is not just the admission. It is that Islamabad is now rushing to build the system after years of not doing it. (samaa.tv) ### What did Pakistan actually admit? Malik’s point was simple and unusually blunt: Pakistan is not sitting on a government-controlled emergency oil buffer the way bigger importers do. In his TV remarks, he said crude oil stocks cover only about 5 to 7 days. That is the kind of number you mention when you want everyone to understand the cushion is thin. (samaa.tv) ###(samaa.tv)ercial inventories held by oil marketing companies, refineries, and the normal supply chain. Recent reporting around the government’s reserve plan puts total fuel cover closer to 24 to 28 days. But those barrels are for routine operations — not a locked emergency stash that the state can release in a crisis. That is the gap Malik was talking about. (newsw([samaa.tv)e the risk is not abstract. Pakistan’s policymakers have been reacting to supply fears tied to tensions around the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s main oil chokepoints. If tankers are disrupted there, import-dependent countries feel it fast. Pakistan’s own regulator, OGRA, had already told oil-sector players earlier this year to keep adequate stocks as Middle East tensions escalated. (newswire.com.pk)mittee under the Petroleum Division to design and operationalize strategic petroleum reserves. The committee was set up on April 22 and was told to submit recommendations and an implementation roadmap by May 8. That is a very short deadline, which tells you this has moved from think-tank problem to live policy problem. (thenews.pk) ### How big (newswire.com.pk)ch closer to the emergency buffers many countries aim for. One financing idea under review is a Rs10-per-litre petroleum development levy on petrol and diesel. With annual fuel use around 20 billion litres, that could raise roughly Rs200 billion a year, or about Rs600 billion over three years, to fund storage infrastructure. (newswire.com.pk) the new committee is revisiting earlier technical work that had already flagged weak storage capacity and recommended structured emergency reserves. In other words, this is less a discovery than a delayed response. The catch is that storage tanks take money, land, logistics, and political follow-through. (thenews.pk) ### How d(newswire.com.pk)bvious. Pakistani discussion around Malik’s remarks contrasted Pakistan’s thin cover with India’s much larger reserve position. One Pakistani policy discussion last year put India’s cumulative reserve cover at 87 days. The exact comparison matters less than the basic point — India has a state-backed buffer, Pakistan mostly does not. (dawn.com) ### Botto(thenews.pk)ty. The country can manage ordinary supply with commercial stocks, but a real external shock is a different test — and that is why the scramble to build strategic reserves is happening now. (newswire.com.pk)