On the morning of March 13, 2026, Ahmed, a delivery rider in Lahore, pulled into a petrol station on Multan Road and watched the attendant reset the pump.

The price had jumped again. Not by five or 10 rupees but by a significantly higher amount, which kept on changing, because of indecision. Dubai crude had doubled in 14 days, from US$71 a barrel to US$146, and the shockwave had reached Ahmed’s fuel tank before it reached the Pakistani Ministry of Finance’s spreadsheets.

A couple of weeks later, on April 2, with the US-Israeli-Iran war heating up further and the Strait of Hormuz blocked by Iran, effectively stopping 20 percent of global oil and gas shipments, the price of petrol skyrocketed again, this time by Rs134.

Ahmed earns roughly Rs35,000 a month. His Honda CD-70 motorcycle consumes about eight litres of petrol a week. Before the shock, that cost him around Rs2,000. After it, closer to Rs3,500. The difference, which is about Rs6,000 a month, is the margin between paying rent, and not, or whether to pay the school fees of his children, or not. It is not an abstraction — it is a budgeting decision.

Pakistan’s dependence on imported petroleum is a structural crisis exemplified by how oil price spikes always send the country into an economic spiral, the brunt of which is borne by the masses. However, the numbers tell us that a cheaper, cleaner future is within reach, if the state chooses to act before the next hit

Pakistan’s dependence on imported petroleum is a structural crisis exemplified by how oil price spikes always send the country into an economic spiral, the brunt of which is borne by the masses. However, the numbers tell us that a cheaper, cleaner future is within reach, if the state chooses to act before the next hit

Pakistan has more than 30 million registered motorcycles. They carry workers, students, parents ferrying children to school and the entire last-mile delivery economy that keeps Pakistan’s cities fed. Together, they consume roughly 1.92 million metric tonnes of petrol every year, which is a quarter of everything the country burns.

When oil prices spike, these 30 million riders absorb the hit first, hardest and longest.

With a Pakistan-facilitated two week ceasefire currently in place and hopes of a more permanent end to hostilities in sight, oil prices may well be on a downward trend in the coming days. But that should not prevent us from looking at a structural problem that keeps things on a knife’s edge for Pakistan in macro-economic terms and for the budgets of people like Ahmed.

THE 14 BILLION DOLLAR HABIT

Pakistan spent US$14.2 billion importing petroleum products and crude oil in the latest 12-month period, as per trade statistics.

That is 67 percent of the country’s trade deficit. It is more than what we spend on importing machinery, chemicals or food. It is the single largest recurring drain on foreign exchange and, unlike machinery, it produces nothing and is all effectively burned. Every dollar that leaves the country for a barrel of crude oil is a dollar that does not build a factory, fund a school, construct a road or equip a hospital.

The fact that fossil fuel imports account for 67 percent of the country’s trade deficit, makes Pakistan’s the third highest share among 74 climate-vulnerable nations, behind only Morocco and Bangladesh. This is not a new finding. It has been true for two decades. What is new is that a credible, affordable, scalable alternative finally exists, and that is through electrification.

Pakistan consumes approximately 58.8 million litres of petrol and diesel every day. Every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of crude oil adds 400-500 million dollars to the annual import bill. At peak shock pricing in March 2026, the annualised petroleum import bill would have exceeded 22 billion dollars. The country is, almost always, one sustained disruption away from a balance-of-payments (BOP) emergency.

We have been here before.

In 2008, when the crude oil price hit $140. And in 2022, when the crude oil price touched $120 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Each time, the response was the same: absorb the shock, pass through some of it, subsidise the rest, borrow more, destroy purchasing power through rampant inflation and wait for prices to fall.

It is groundhog day, but spring is further out of reach every time it is repeated.

THIRTY-NINE MILLION VEHICLES, ONE PROBLEM

Pakistan’s registered vehicle fleet stands at 39.09 million units. Motorcycles dominate at 30.52 million, making up 78 percent of all vehicles on Pakistan’s roads. Cars account for 4.85 million out of the 39.09 million units. Trucks, buses, tractors and rickshaws make up the rest.

The fleet is old. The average motorcycle is eight years old, while the average car is 12 years old. The average truck is 18 years old. Nearly 9.4 million motorcycles are over a decade old, burning 20 to 40 percent more fuel per kilometre than a new equivalent, because of degraded engines, poor maintenance and the complete absence of emission standards.

But the problem runs deeper than vehicles. Pakistan has 1.3 million agricultural tubewells, of which 83 percent, roughly 1.08 million, run on diesel. They irrigate 60 percent of the country’s cultivated land. Every cropping season, a farmer........

© Dawn (Magazines)