Pakistan LPG Marketers Announce Nationwide Strike Over Pricing

The Pakistan LPG Marketers Association and related industry organizations have announced a nationwide strike on liquefied petroleum gas sales and business activities starting November 16, 2026. The associations are protesting a new government pricing formula that they claim will increase LPG prices by 25 to 30 percent. Industry leaders argue the proposed mechanism unfairly uses sea-imported LPG as the benchmark for the entire country, despite 90 percent of supplies being transported by road tankers and 30 percent being produced domestically.

Traders also oppose a Ministry of Energy proposal to transfer price regulation authority from the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority to state-owned companies. This dispute coincides with a severe supply crisis driven by suspended supplies from Qatar and disrupted overland movement across the Pakistan-Iran border, which has created a gap between official prices and open-market rates.

In response to the protests, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has formed a ministerial committee to review the policy changes. The associations have given the government 15 days to accept their demands. If a resolution is not reached, the strike threatens to leave millions of households without cooking and heating fuel during the winter peak.