State Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik on Saturday announced that Russia had agreed to provide Pakistan with crude oil, petroleum and diesel at discounted rates.
He made the announcement while speaking to journalists. Malik made the announcement following the return of a Pakistani delegation from the country. The visit, he said, had exceeded expectations. He said contacts had also been established with Russian enterprise on long-term contracts. Marked progress on pipelines too, he said, had been registered.
For over a decade, Pakistani leaders hoped that Russia might help it diversify its reliance on China and especially the United States. The challenge is US economic tools are still powerful enough to complicate any deal with Russia, and Russia’s own wealth and capabilities have thus far proven to be insufficient to escape those complications. While it is a cliché, it is also true: Russian pipelines in Pakistan have proven to be a pipe dream. The dream is alluring, but shows few signs of materialising, it has been argued, separately, however.
