LAHORE: The federal government raised the prices of petroleum products for the fifth consecutive day, pushing petrol to Rs375.82 per litre and high-speed diesel past the Rs400 mark, a sequence of increases that has already triggered fare hikes across the goods and passenger transport sectors, a legal challenge in the Lahore High Court and a fresh round of profiteering in food and fuel markets.
Under the latest revision, petrol was made costlier by Rs5.02 per litre and high-speed diesel by Rs5.28 per litre. The new price of high-speed diesel has been fixed at Rs403.32 per litre. The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) issued the notification covering the next three days — Saturday, Sunday and Monday — with the revised rates taking effect after midnight.
The cumulative impact of the recent revisions is far sharper than any single-day figure suggests. Over the past seven days, petrol has risen by a total of about Rs25 per litre and diesel by up to Rs20 per litre. Transporters say the increases began well before the current spell: between August 20 and September 7, petrol and diesel had already gone up by as much as Rs23 per litre. The increases have also moved into the political arena, with Jamaat-e-Islami announcing a long march on Islamabad on September 20 over the petroleum levy.
Diesel is the more consequential of the two numbers for household budgets. It powers freight trucks, inter-city buses, tractors, tube wells and a large share of Pakistan’s agricultural machinery, which means every rupee added at the pump travels quickly into the price of wheat flour, vegetables, milk and cooking oil.
Goods transporters have already raised freight rates by up to 15 per cent, with the new tariff taking effect from Saturday. All Pakistan Goods Transport Ittehad President Malik Shahzad Awan then announced a further 5 per cent increase, saying diesel had climbed Rs20 and petrol Rs24 per litre in just four days.
Awan said the government’s decision to change petroleum prices on a daily basis was unacceptable. He recalled that during the nationwide strike observed from August 8 to 17, the petroleum minister had assured transporters that prices would not be revised daily. Transporters, he said, postponed the strike for 40 days on the assurances of the federal and provincial governments — a window that expires next week. If the agreements are not honoured, he warned, transporters across Pakistan will strike again.
Passenger fares have moved without any official notification. Fares from Lahore to Bahawalnagar, Bahawalpur, Gujranwala, Depalpur and Mandi Yazman have gone up by Rs200 to Rs400. The same increase is being charged on routes to Rahim Yar Khan, Sadiqabad and Sahiwal. Inter-provincial fares from Lahore to Sukkur, Hyderabad and Karachi have risen by Rs600 to Rs1,000.
Transporters have made no formal announcement of the revised passenger fares, and the Punjab Transport Department has not issued a new fare table. Sources said arbitrary fares are being charged at Lahore’s D-class bus stands, where weak surveillance and enforcement by the Regional Transport Authority has left passengers with little protection.
The petition adds to a growing list of energy-related matters before the court, which is separately hearing a petition against power and gas load-shedding.
A miscellaneous petition against the continuous increases has been filed in the Lahore High Court by the Judicial Activism Panel through Advocate Azhar Siddique. The petition states that between September 7 and 11, petrol rose by Rs29.95 per litre while diesel became costlier by Rs25.27 per litre, taking it past Rs400.
The petitioner argues that diesel in Pakistan is roughly Rs140 per litre more expensive than in Bangladesh, Rs122 more than in India, Rs106 more than in Afghanistan and about Rs77 more than in Sri Lanka. Rising fuel costs, it says, are inflating transport, agriculture and essential commodity prices, with the heaviest burden falling on salaried and low-income households.
The petition asks the court to summon the complete record of the petroleum levy, taxes, oil marketing company (OMC) margins and dealer margins, and to require the authorities to place the pricing mechanism for petroleum products before the court.
The fuel shock has been compounded by open violation of notified prices. LPG is officially fixed at Rs308 per kilogramme but is selling in the market at Rs450 to Rs500 per kg. The 11.8-kilogramme domestic cylinder, officially priced at Rs3,643, is changing hands for up to Rs5,000. Auto-rickshaw drivers have raised fares in response.
The district administration has failed to enforce official rates for milk and yoghurt, as tracked in The Lahore Times’daily Lahore market rate list. Milk is notified at Rs170 per litre but sells for Rs200 to Rs240 in the open market, while yoghurt has reached Rs260 to Rs280 per kilogramme. Broiler chicken, notified at Rs461 per kg retail, is selling at Rs520, and farm eggs notified at Rs244 per dozen are being sold at Rs300. Citizens have demanded that officials enforce the price list and act against overcharging, an issue examined in our earlier report on the province-wide crackdown on overcharging.
International markets offer little near-term relief, and the same regional tensions have already disrupted flight operations for Pakistani travellers. Crude prices rose more than 8 per cent on a weekly basis amid Middle East tensions and disruptions to key shipping lanes. In Friday’s session, Brent slipped $3.02, or 2.81 per cent, to $104.61 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate fell $2.43 to $100.05 — both benchmarks having touched their highest levels since mid-May during the week.
Prices eased on Friday after reports of talks with Iran on an interim arrangement to keep shipping moving through the Strait of Hormuz, but supply anxieties persist. Satellite imagery showed smoke near Saudi Arabia’s strategically vital East-West pipeline, which allows crude to reach export terminals without transiting Hormuz. The International Energy Agency reported that Saudi crude supply fell by 2.3 million barrels per day month-on-month in August to 6 million bpd — described as the lowest level in more than three decades.
Preliminary ship-tracking data showed transits through the Strait of Hormuz falling from 11 to seven on Thursday. Concerns deepened further after reports that Yemen’s Houthi fighters had gained access to Perim Island near Bab el-Mandeb. Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have tightened refined product supply, and GasBuddy data showed the US national average diesel price crossing $6 per gallon for the first time. Germany’s Commerzbank has raised its year-end Brent forecast from $75 to $85 a barrel and lifted its diesel and jet fuel estimates.
Analysts warn that if shipping disruptions in the Gulf and Russian refinery outages persist, refined products — diesel above all — could rise faster than crude, keeping pressure on Pakistan’s import bill and on the pumps.
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