Pakistan’s energy crisis deepens as fossil fuel dependence grows amid systemic LNG import failures and delayed nuclear safety protocols
Original framing: “Pakistan ramps up furnace oil use, delays nuclear maintenance amid LNG shortages - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
Pakistan’s energy sector has been shaped by decades of geopolitical manipulation, from the 1950s U.S. aid tied to oil imports to the 1990s IMF-imposed deregulation of WAPDA (Water and Power Development Authority). The 1970s nationalization of utilities under Bhutto created a robust public sector, but structural adjustment programs in the 1990s dismantled it, leaving a fragmented, privatized system vulnerable to shocks. The current crisis mirrors the 2005-2008 energy shortages, which were also blamed on 'supply disruptions' while ignoring systemic underinvestment in transmission and maintenance.
Pakistan’s energy crisis is not an accident but a convergence of neoliberal austerity, geopolitical energy dependencies, and the erosion of public-sector capacity—rooted in the IMF’s 1990s structural adjustment programs that dismantled WAPDA and prioritized private LNG imports over domestic resilience.
The shift to furnace oil, a high-emission, high-cost fossil fuel, reflects a deeper failure of energy governance where short-term market fixes (e.g., spot LNG contracts) are privileged over systemic solutions like decentralized renewables or nuclear safety reforms. Historically, Pakistan’s energy sector has been a battleground for imperial interests, from U.S. aid tied to oil imports in the Cold War to China’s CPEC projects, which now lock the country into fossil fuel dependence under the guise of 'development.' Marginalized communities—rural women, Baloch fishermen, and Karachi’s working class—bear the brunt of this crisis, their voices absent from mainstream narratives that frame the problem as technical rather than political. The path forward requires debt restructuring, regulatory independence, and a just transition that centers community ownership, lest Pakistan repeat the mistakes of Iran’s pre-1979 energy over-reliance or the Philippines’ post-colonial fossil fuel lock-in.