Pakistan’s announcement of an emergency Rs55 per litre oil price adjustment could well be the first of more to come.

Dawn spoke to oil industry executives who say oil markets are now roiled with an uncertainty never seen before. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has taken an estimated 20 million barrels per day (mbd) cumulative off global oil markets in what is being called “the largest oil supply disruption in history”.

There is no precedent in the past when a quantity of this magnitude was suddenly removed from the market, not even in the oil embargo of 1973.

When not handled properly, price and demand shocks in fuels have the potential to either break the oil supply chain and cripple vehicular movement across large swathes of the country or ignite record-high inflation that takes many months to bring under control.

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