The lights went out first in the power-loom streets of Faisalabad, then in a Karachi katchi abadi where a cheap Chinese fan froze above a child’s bed, and finally in the control room of a small textile mill in Lahore where the owner watched the gas pressure fall on a borrowed computer he could no longer afford to upgrade. In each place the explanation was the same: Pakistan’s energy system depends on imported fuel paid for with money it does not have, and the Iran-US-Israel war is turning that dependence into a noose.
Somewhere near the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, a vessel named for that city of twenty million people sits at anchor, going nowhere. The MT Karachi, operated by the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation, is carrying the fuel those twenty million people need. A second PNSC tanker is stranded alongside it. A third cargo, mid-loading when American and Israeli aircraft struck Iran on February 28, will not sail under any condition the insurance market is currently willing to cover.
In Islamabad, a second emergency meeting has been convened. Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik sits across from Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb. The agenda is simple and terrible: what does Pakistan have, how long will it last, and what happens when it runs out.
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