IslamabadHormuz closure forced a tanker bypass in April.
Pakistan takes over 60% of its diesel from Kuwait, official data show; Kuwait proposes building strategic reserves inside Pakistan.
No deal was signed, but it would be the first Gulf reserve base outside Hormuz reach.
Sources: Dawn
THE EXPORTER'S CHOKEPOINT
Kuwait has no maritime export route that avoids Hormuz. Every barrel it sells leaves through the 33-km strait between Iran and Oman. For an importer the chokepoint is an oil-price problem; for Kuwait it is an existential one — closure means oil that cannot leave the wellhead.
WHAT A STRATEGIC RESERVE IS
A strategic petroleum reserve is a government-controlled stockpile held against supply shocks — distinct from commercial inventory at refineries. IEA member countries must hold the equivalent of 90 days of net imports; the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, established after the 1973 embargo, holds barrels in salt caverns along the Gulf Coast.
THE OVERSEAS-RESERVE PRECEDENT
Gulf producers already lease storage abroad to pre-position barrels closer to buyers. Saudi Aramco has stored crude in Okinawa since 2019 under a contract with Japan; ADNOC stores in Kagoshima. The Pakistan proposal flips the logic — instead of staging near a buyer, Kuwait would stage outside its own chokepoint.
WHY PAKISTAN'S COAST
Karachi and Gwadar sit east of Hormuz on the Arabian Sea. A tanker from Kuwait still transits the strait to reach them — but once the barrels are landed and tanked, they are inside the buyer's economy. From Karachi the diesel can move overland to Punjab or be re-exported east; from Gwadar it can in theory reach China via the CPEC corridor.
THE 60% DEPENDENCE
Pakistan State Oil's contract with Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, in force since the 1980s, is one of the oldest continuous fuel-supply agreements in the Gulf-South Asia trade. It locks roughly two-thirds of Pakistan's diesel imports to a single source — efficient in calm years, a single point of failure in a Hormuz event.
THE TANKER-WAR LESSON
From 1984 to 1988, Iran and Iraq attacked over 400 commercial vessels in the Gulf. Markets adapted — tankers were reflagged under US and Kuwaiti flags and escorted by warships in Operation Earnest Will. The lesson Gulf planners took: disruption is easier to threaten than to sustain, but the threat alone is enough to demand redundancy.