Jie Li & Chi-Jen Yang, eds.

(2014), _Globalization, Development in Asia,Volume 3: The Political

Economy of Energy_

Chapter 6

The Political Economy of Energy

in Pakistan: Perspectives from
Balochistans Natural Gas Fields
and the Port City of Gwadar
Faisal Chaudhry

Introduction
Since the 2001 announcement of the construction of a deep water port
funded by China in the town of Gwadar, many Pakistani officials have looked
forward to the transformation of the small fishing port into a new Dubai on
the Arabian Sea. While the feeling that Gwadar is a miracle of geography
and a gift to Pakistan persists more than a decade later, the creation of a
petroleum-based economic hub along the Makran coast has proved a matter
of ongoing controversy between the Pakistani state, dominated as it has been
by the military and unelected bureaucracy, and local inhabitants.1 This was
made most dramatically evident to the world at large in 2004, a year before
the initial phase of the project was completed, when a car bomb killed three
Chinese engineers assigned to work on the construction of the port. Widely
attributed to a reawakened and nationalist-inclined insurgency among the
long suffering ethnic Baloch population of Pakistans largest, least populous,
and most resource-rich province of Balochistan, the killing of the Chinese
engineers set the stage for the most extreme era of state-led counterinsurgency violence in the area since the 1970s. While some three decades have
elapsed since the crackdown of the 1970s and today, the problem of national
integration unfolding in Balochistan continues to be less the result of primordial
ethno-national tensions than a product of the skewed structure of the
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Pakistani state and the obstacles this has created to bringing about an equitable pattern of intranational development.
While keeping the structural tension underlying the relationship between
Pakistans unitary central state and its restive provinces in mind, as well as the
budgetary prioritization of defense that has underwritten this de facto constitutional arrangement, this chapter considers the political economy of hydrocarbon-based energy resources in Pakistan. Because for much of its history,
Pakistans main petroleum resource has been the vast natural gas reserves of
Balochistan, the chapter examines the political economy of energy by using
the province as its main focus. After a brief introductory section discussing
Balochistans history relative to Pakistans founding national political economy of defense, the chapter then turns to the beginnings of the natural
gas industry in Balochistan in the section on A National Political Economy
of Defense: Pakistans Formative Years. The section on The Beginnings of
Natural Gas Extraction in Balochistan discusses the more recent history of
Balochistans role in the hydrocarbon economy, taking both an intraprovincial and an intra-Asian perspective. More specifically, in the same section,
I both narrow and broaden the focus. Honing in on Gwadar and the Makran
coast, I discuss Pakistans goal of re-orienting its energy economy by shifting
from the extraction of domestic gas reserves to creating a regional center on
the Arabian Sea that is intended to function as a clearing house for transportation, refinement, and financial services relating to oil and gas (Figure 1). At

Figure 1. Gwadar location within Pakistani Balochistan.

Source: Voice of Balochistan (http://voiceofbalochistan.com/english/vob-content-library/news/
archives/15-jul-2010/62/pakistan-navy-to-vacate-land-for-gwadar-uplift-plan.html).

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the same time, in the same, I also situate the proposed transformation of
Gwadar and the Makran coast in the context of an increasing intra-Asian
competition for energy resources in the 21st century.

A National Political Economy of Defense:

Pakistans Formative Years
A federal state in theory, within its first decade, Pakistan became a highly
unitary one in actuality as power was consolidated inward toward the central
institutions of the military and (to a lesser extent) the unelected bureaucracy.
While the eventual consequence of this was to terminate civilian rule altogether by 1958, the anterior cause of Pakistani centralization is best traced to
the circumstances that surrounded the countrys birth. One cannot, therefore, understand the foundations of the Pakistani political economy without
first considering the immediate circumstances the country found itself in after
independence in 1947. As an entirely novel political entity, Pakistan was faced
with the enormous practical and ideological problem of forging a nation from
extremely disparate cultural, linguistic, and geographical parts while garnering little of the inheritance that British rule left to the subcontinent.2 Instead,
the majority of resources both institutional and financial that had been
built up during the tenure of the Raj fell upon the other side of the border
to the counterpart Indian union from which Pakistan was partitioned in
1947.3
At the level of fiscal policy, the overwhelming priority that was given to
building up a military after partition meant that defense costs immediately
took on a disproportionate share of government spending, coming to some
70% of expenditure in the first national budget in 1948.4 This only exacerbated a development strategy during Pakistans first 15 to 20 years that
explicitly favored the creation of a domestic industrial class over all other
goals. Thus, even despite impressive growth rates in manufacturing in the
1960s during Pakistans great period of state-led development, the governments self-avowed policy of functional inequality came at the expense of
agriculture.5 As a result, the government moved only slowly and never with
full commitment toward resolving the extremely inegalitarian nature of the
agrarian economy on which the vast majority of the population depended.6
Even worse, the commitment to unequal development tended to directly
clash with Pakistans chief political imperative. This is because as functional
inequality exacerbated regional disparities, it forced the government all the
more to try to unite Pakistans disparate elements by imposing a unitary
state structure upon them. This was intended not only to bind together the

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F. Chaudhry

countrys eastern and western wings but also the four separate provinces of
West Pakistan (consisting of Sindh, the Punjab, Balochistan, and the North
Western Frontier).7 Overall, therefore, already before the end of its first decade as an independent state, Pakistan was beset by a perverse feedback loop
through which political centralization and economic inequality became
mutually self-reinforcing phenomena.
In the wake of the independence struggle that transformed East Pakistan
into Bangladesh and the execution of Pakistans first elected leader, Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto, at the hands of General Zia ul-Haq in 1977, by the early 1980s,
the countrys tendency toward extended periods of military rule punctuated
by excursions into formal democracy made the unitary structure of the state
more like a fait accompli than something that seemed subject to modification.
At the same time, the growing inequality between Pakistans four remaining
main provinces proved to be a function not just of differential access to the
boons of growth but also the geographically skewed distribution of many of
the key natural resources on which the national economy relied. With a mere
4% of the national population, but over 40% of the national territory, demography and geography made it all too easy for Balochistan to become a source
of provincial subsidy to the predominantly Punjabi elements of the military
and unelected bureaucracy that dominated the federal center. Perhaps even
more than in East Pakistan in the decades prior to the war for Bangladeshi
independence in 1971, this early pattern of national growth without provincial development stood out in Balochistan, given that political tension
between province and center dated all the way back to 1947.
Incorporated into Britains India only in 1839 with the Rajs invasion of
the Khanate tribal confederacy of Kalat that had formed the most powerful
base of dynastic authority in (parts of) Balochistan, up until 1947, the province was comprised of four separate and indirectly ruled princely states.8
While Kalat was only one of the four, by the 1920s and 1930s, it had become
the most visible site of Baloch nationalist agitation, bringing together both
tribal sardars and members of the emergent middle class in opposition to
princely rule.9 While at its inception such nationalist sentiment was decidedly
anti-Khanate, by the time that the British were ready to quit India in 1947,
the Khan, himself, had become an exponent of patriotic feeling, articulating
express opposition to the prospect of accession to Pakistan. Thus, in the face
of Khans refusal to join the new republic, the nascent Pakistani military was
sent into the province in 1948 to force Kalats accession, along with the
accession of Balochistans other three princely states as well. These events
then set stage for discontent to spread well beyond the former Kalat state to
other parts of the province as well. Once more, both tribal sardars and

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substantial parts of the Baloch middle class were mobilized, now alongside of
disaffected elements from the dynastic elite. Therefore, even while the provinces population remained significantly divided not only among the various tribes that comprised the ethnic Baloch but also between its Baloch and
non-Baloch inhabitants by the time of the violent counter-insurgency
campaigns of the 1970s, there had already transpired a considerable history
of opposition to the federal centers rough hand in dealing with pro-autonomy/nationalist sentiment in the province.

The Beginnings of Natural Gas Extraction in Balochistan

While the history of modern hydrocarbon exploration in the Indian subcontinent can be dated to the 1860s in what is now the province of Assam in
India, petroleum discovery in the upper Indus Basin areas of todays Pakistan
came of age only in the 1930s and 1940s.10 Large-scale production first
became possible in 1952, when vast gas reserves were found near the town of
Sui, located near Balochistans eastern border at the provinces crossroads
with Sindh and the Punjab and only about 20 km from the Indus River
(Figure 2). While a significant oil field was also discovered near Sui that same

Figure 2. Balochistan division map.

Source: Government of Balochistan and UNICEF, District Development Profile, 2011.

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year, it took until the 1960s for oil to become truly important with the discovery of the Toot oilfields on the Pothohar plateau in the northern part of
the Punjab adjacent to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.11 Although exploration
on the Plateau commenced in 1961 and a first well was drilled three years
later, commercial production of oil did not begin until 1967. These operations were undertaken by the two petroleum corporations that were established under Pakistans first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, in 1950 the
state-owned Pakistan Petroleum Limited, a successor to Burmah Oil
Company and Pakistan-Soviet Oilfields, which later became Pakistan Oilfields,
Ltd.12 Even today, however, the countrys proven oil reserves sum to just 313
million barrels, although it seems likely that Pakistans territories play host to
significantly more than this figure.13
Regardless, it was the Sui gas deposits that became Pakistans first (and
most) significant commercialized hydrocarbon resource, with active exploration and drilling commencing within the first two to three years after discovery. With 5 billion in loans from both private sector British banks and the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a first 16-inch
pipeline connecting Sui to Karachi via Sukkur and Hyderabad was completed
in 1955; gas started flowing to Pakistans then capital the same year.14 Aside
from what was initially thought to be the much smaller Mari gas field, which
was discovered in 1957 on the other side of the Indus in the town of Daharki
in Sindh, there was little further gas exploration activity of significance until
1976.15 For the majority of Pakistans first half-century of existence, therefore, Sui made Balochistan Pakistans key energy production base as well as
the countrys only commercial repository of natural gas. With an estimated
340 billion cubic meters of recoverable reserves at the time of their discovery,16 Sui was only too well equipped to function in this role, being responsible for as much as 45% of the countrys total production all the way up until
the mid-1990s.17 (The Mari field did not go into development until 1965.18)
Simply put, the vast size of the Sui reserves meant that there was little reason
to worry early on about the development of demand pressures based on bottlenecks in supply.
Of course, this state of affairs could not go on permanently, and the
inflection point was reached in the middle of the 1980s. In 1985, Sui gas
production peaked, with Pakistans energy demand having increased approximately threefold in the time since. By 1995, Sindhs role in the total balance
of the countrys gas production still the key resource in its overall energy
profile was becoming increasingly prominent. By this point, for example,
the Mari field was meeting some 20% of the countrys production.19 (While
the reserves at Mari were initially estimated at 57 billion cubic meters, later

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discovery work revealed the field to house roughly the same volume of
reserves as Sui.) Elsewhere throughout the country, there were some 25
other gas fields in production as well.20 Overall, this meant that by the earlyto mid-1990s, with then estimates of a total volume of 662 billion cubic
meters of recoverable gas reserves, the countrys extraction had increased to
more than 15 billion cubic meters per year as compared to a figure of 10 billion in 198221 and 1.3 billion in 1970.22 For the three decades from 1980 to
2011, the United States Energy Information Administration (USEIA) estimates that Pakistans total natural gas production/consumption levels
increased from 8.1 billion cubic meters to 39.6 billion, with the sharpest
period of ascent coming from 2002 to 2006 when production/consumption
increased from 22.9 billion to 36.8 billion cubic meters.23 These figures can
further be put into perspective when measured against total proven reserves
of 447 billion cubic meters in 1980 and 753 billion in 2011, with the sharpest
increase coming from 1991 to 1993 when estimates of recoverable reserves
jumped from 549 billion to 878 billion cubic meters. While the fluctuation
in recoverable reserve levels has remained sharp due to the cyclical quality of
exhaustion and new discovery, generally speaking, there has been a marked
leveling off of new discovery since 2002 (when recoverable reserves had
reached 708 billion cubic meters).24
The pattern of oil production and consumption also help to put the last
three decades of changes in Pakistans energy economy into perspective.
Between 1980 and 2012, total oil production increased from 11,000 barrels
per day to 62,000 with the sharpest period of ascent coming from 1984 to
1990 when production moved from 18,000 to 62,000 barrels per day.25 With
the figures for crude oil being roughly the same, production levels can be
measured against total consumption figures that have increased from 104,000
to 371,000 barrels per day from 1980 to 2012 (with the sole period of modest decline coming from 1999 to 2004 when consumption sloped downward
from 369,000 to 326,000 barrels per day).26 For the duration of this threedecade period, Pakistan has remained a net importer of oil, taking in some
93,000 barrels per day in 1980 and 309,000 in 2011.27 Over this same
period, the countrys proven oil reserves have fluctuated as well, with the
total figure moving from 200 million to somewhere between 281 million
barrels and the earlier quoted figure of 313 million.28
While the overall increase in Pakistans proven oil reserves has been modest, it is clear that oil is taking on greater importance in the countrys energy
mix. Relatively speaking, therefore, the overall profile of gas has been diminishing. By 20052006, the share of gas relative to other resources had declined
to 50.3%. Between 20052006 and 20102011, the same figure decreased by

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approximately three additional percentage points to 47.6%. This compares to

the opposite direction in which oils role in the countrys energy supply has
been moving, increasing from 28.2% of the total in 20052006 to 32% by
20102011. Other major sources of energy have proven more constant
(though much less significant) over the same period including hydroelectric
(1213%), coal (approximately 7%), nuclear (approximately 1%), liquefied
petroleum gas (0.50.7%), and imported electricity (approximately 0.1%).29
Yet more important than what it says about the growing prominence of
oil, the shift away from natural gas is significant because of what it indicates
about the increasing sense that the country is experiencing a dramatic energy
crisis that will only get worse in the years to come.30 While load shedding, or
rolling power blackouts, have long been a staple of everyday life in Pakistan
(including for the well-off), in the last several years, the problem has become
ever more emblematic of the diminishing horizon of the countrys natural gas
supply and its expanding need for energy. By early 2012, for example, the
federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources was making it a point to
prominently declare that the famed reserves of Sui (as well as those of another
major repository at Qadir Pur in Sindh) would be exhausted by 2020.31 The
problem was even more visibly crystallized in the demise of former President
Pervez Musharrafs scheme of shifting private auto-fuel consumption from
gasoline to compressed natural gas (CNG) in order to reduce expenditures
made on the international market for oil. The initial success of Musharrafs
plan, which was launched in the early 2000s, has become the source of significant new energy dilemmas less than a decade later. This is because Musharrafs
early policies for example, promoting equipment imports to fit vehicles to
run on natural gas and distributing licenses to open fueling station rapidly
pushed the countrys auto-sector to widely adopt CNG. Thus, by 2012 about
80% of the countrys private vehicles some 3.5 million in total had
shifted away from gasoline. Because such levels of consumption by the autosector were clearly unsustainable, however, the government has eventually had
to attempt to shift drivers back to gasoline in order to re-allocate the countrys
limited gas supplies to other sectors of the economy.32 Long lines at CNG stations, sometimes requiring patrons to wait hours, have now become commonplace. Since October 2012, this state of affairs has become even more trying,
because of a ruling by Pakistans Supreme Court that prices at the pump were
exorbitant, leading as many as 1,800 of the countrys 3,400 CNG fuel stations
to close their operations entirely.33
Alongside of its gradually declining importance relative to other sources
of energy production, the natural gas sectors increasing need to open
reserves outside of Balochistan has become another symbol of Pakistans

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unfolding energy crisis. As mentioned earlier, it is the gas resources of Sindh,

above all, that have become dominant in the last two decades. On the positive
side, this has tended to spread the burden of provincial inequity that has governed resource exploitation policy in Pakistan a bit more evenly than was the
case during the long period of near-exclusive previous reliance on Balochistan.
Thus, since the late 1990s, Sindh has accounted for the majority of the countrys production of natural gas (or sui gas as it has generally come to be
called), accounting for approximately 70% of the total as compared to
Balochistans now approximately 20%.34
However, regardless of whether or for how long Sindh remains Pakistans
most significant energy producing state, the political economy of the countrys natural gas sector is destined to remain heavily tied to provincial disparities in the national development regime. Moreover, there are at least three
reasons that the relationship of the Pakistani center to Balochistan, in particular which has traditionally suffered the most inequitable reimbursement
rates for its resource is only likely to grow more fraught in the years to
come. First, there is the unprecedented scale of yet untapped natural gas
reserves in the Kohlu and Dera Bugti districts of the province, which are
located some 200 km south of Sui and estimated to house upwards of an
enormous 623 billion cubic meters of reserves.35 (The figure would nearly
double existing reserves.) While estimates of the commercial value of these
vast supplies are difficult to make very accurately, the International Crisis
Group has cited a figure of at least US$110 billion over 100 years.36 To date,
the exploitation of this vast source of natural and commercial wealth has been
held in check by the unrest in the province, especially in the wake of the
armys killing in August 2006 of the former governor of Balochistan, Akbar
Khan Bugti, the tumandar or head of the Bugti tribe of the Baloch and a
figure the military was only too keen on trying to cast as the cause of the
provinces renewed troubles since 2004. (Bugtis killing has also figured
prominently in the legal troubles that have plagued former President
Musharraf since leaving office in 2008, as well as in his arrest after returning
to Pakistan from political exile to contest the 2013 national elections.)
Second, and even more ominous if one takes environmental factors into
account, there is the possibility of turning anew to Balochistan (and Sindh)
in order to begin unlocking Pakistans estimated 934 billion (from a total
volume of as much as 5.7 trillion) cubic meters of shale gas that is now
deemed recoverable based on advances in highly controversial hydraulic fracturing technologies.37 In the same vein, there is likewise the expanding
efforts at increasing oil exploration in both Balochistan and Sindh as well.
Finally, as mentioned at the outset of this chapter, there is the growing desire

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to transform Balochistans coast into a leading edge of a new Pakistani hydrocarbon economy focused on the transportation of oil and gas by land and sea
to the countrys energy hungry neighbors to the south, west, east, and north.
I will turn to this last factor directly.

Gwadar and the Makran Coast in the Intraprovincial

and Intra-Asian Perspectives
In order to understand the shift that is now making the coast of Balochistan
into a potential hub for a new energy economy focused on carbon resource
transportation, processing, and financial services, it is necessary to consider a
place like Gwadar from both an intraprovincial and an intra-Asian perspective.
This is because the proposed transformation of Gwadar involves interests
other than just those within Pakistan that have long monopolized the gains
that Balochistans resources have produced. To the contrary, the major
national powers within Pakistans vicinity China, India, Iran, the Gulf
States, Turkey, and the Central Asian Republics all play a key role on the
demand side of the equation that will govern Islamabads ability to transform
the Makran coast into a supplier of energy-related services. In this final section of the chapter, therefore, it is necessary both to narrow and expand our
analytical perspective as we consider Balochistans future role within Pakistans
political economy of energy (Figure 3).
Ceded to the regime of General Ayub Khan by the state of Oman in
1958, Gwadar is today a town of approximately 50,000 to 70,000 inhabitants
that sits less than 150 km from the border with Irans Sistan and Baluchistan
province. In the other direction lies Pakistans first and still its only great port
metropolis of Karachi. Though Gwadar is located nearly five times farther

Figure 3: Gwadar and the wider Asian World.

Source: South Asian Institute for Strategic Affairs (http://saisaonline.org).

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from the latter as it is from the Iranian border, since 2004, the gap separating
the once quiet port from Karachi has been closed considerably with the completion of the Makran Coast Highway (MCH) in 2004. Stretching more than
600 km and started in 2002, the MCH has vastly reduced travel time to a
mere six hours, a fraction of what it took to traverse the same distance along
the previous passageway connecting Gwadar to Pakistans great metropolis,
which was designed only for all-terrain vehicles. Yet the construction of the
MCH has done more than just link the two locations. It has also set the stage
for a larger, although still largely theoretical, plan to dot the coast from east
to west with significant ports at places like Sonmiani, Ormara, Kalmat, Pasni,
and to the west of Gwadar, Jiwani. The rationale behind this new vision for
the coast is described in detail by one of the self-proclaimed moving spirits
behind it, army Brigadier Nadir Mir. Though hyperbolically stated, Mirs
dreamscape portrait of Gwadar in the year 2025 reveals much about the outlook that informs the military-bureaucratic elites view of Balochistans
importance to the nation. It also helps clarify why the military crackdown
on the province since 2004 has proved so alarmingly severe:
Gwadar [by the year 2025] was of course the crown jewel. The deep sea port, [Export
Processing Zone] investment business zones, all created a gigantic economic cycle.
Pasni zone was the main fishing industry, besides other industries which had come
up. Kalmat, with its blue lagoon was multi purpose tourism and business flourished
in unison. Omara naval base had been expanded. Significantly The Pakistan navy
was no longer dependent on Karachi Ormara was the major naval/military zone
on the coast. Sonmiani was near the national park. The National park was a great
preserve, tourist attraction and the area maintained in its natural habitat. Sonmiani
was a pretty port, with its gold beaches. Karachi zone had horizontally extended into
Sonmiani in the west and Port Qasim in the East. The Gwadar greater Co-Prosperity
zone was now the prime region. The centre port was Gwadar. Gwadar practically
stretched to Jiwani in the west and Pasni in the east. In fact it was now one endless
coastal stretch 25 years ago from small fishing village mindset, had emerged the
globalization concept Two decades earlier, people had marveled at the breathtaking splendors of Dubai. In 2025 the older generation looked at Gwadar-Jiwani-Pasni
prosperity zone with sheer awe [sic].38

However exaggerated this vision (and timetable) may be, there is no

doubt that it hinges on Gwadars becoming a place that will look very different from the small port city its historically Baloch inhabitants have known it
to be.
With respect to Pakistans oil economy, for example, it is Gwadars strategic location at the crossroads between the Persian Gulf and the great
regional powers to the east, India and China, that is most important. The

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Chinese-funded port project, therefore, is only one part of a much larger

complex known as the Gwadar Oil City, which was initially expected to
attract US$40 billion in foreign investment and to include refinery and storage facilities and special economic zones (SEZs) spanning over a total land
area of approximately 12,500 acres.39 An initial agreement by the Chinese to
fund the first phase of the new Oil City project was finalized in 2008. That
deal provided for US$12.5 billion to finance the construction of a petroleum
refinery and petrochemical processing center that was expected to start out
with the capability of handling upwards of 200,000 barrels of oil per day.40
Though preliminary work on a planned second phase of the Oil City
project was underway already by 2006, Chinas Great United Petroleum
Holdings Company (GUPHC), the key investor, abruptly withdrew from an
agreement signed in 2008 and cancelled its involvement altogether in 2009.41
Not coincidentally, another US$5 billion pledged by the United Arab
Emirates International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) to fund a
major coastal refinery project in Balochistans Lasbela district, adjacent to
Karachi on the Makran coast, was withdrawn at roughly the same time.42
While the world financial crisis was clearly important in both of these high
profile cases of investor flight, it is the political turmoil in Balochistan that
appears to have been the key factor. In fact, the IPIC-funded Khalifa refinery had originally been expected to be built at Gwadar, before security concerns had gotten the better of the firm already once before, forcing it to
re-locate the project site to the opposite end of the coastline.
The withdrawal of GUPHCs investment also makes clear that the killing
of the three Chinese engineers in Gwadar in 2004 was only the first in what
by 2007 had become a larger pattern of attacks on the thousand-plus Chinese
personnel working on projects across Balochistan, including more than 100
leases for oil and gas exploration.43 In 2006, for example, three engineers
leaving a cement plant were gunned down in the town of Hub at the
opposite end from Gwadar on Balochistans coast and adjacent to Karachi. In
July 2007, a convoy of Chinese workers was attacked in Khuzder, a city
located north of the coast in the interior of Balochistan. In more recent years,
attacks by Baloch militants have continued including a 2011 ambush on a
van transporting Chinese engineers that killed five (although the engineers
escaped unharmed) in the Dera Bugti district in the northeast of Balochistan
near the Punjab border. Exacerbating such incidents is the fact that Islamist
militants have also taken up the tactic of attacking Chinese expatriates in
other parts of the country.44 Given these events, it is hardly surprising that
GUPHC has not been the only Chinese firm to have cancelled financial
support for Balochistan-based oil and gas investments. Rather, a wider

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withdrawal of Chinese capital from extractive industry projects in Pakistan has

been ongoing since 2007. The 2011 cancellation of a massive US$19 billion
contract in Sindh by the Chinese coal mining conglomerate, the Kingho
Group, is the most visible example.45
The ongoing security situation in Balochistan has implications not only
for Pakistans relationship with China, whatever the latters own exact
motive.46 To the contrary, the Asian giants construction of the deep water
port at Gwadar has long been regarded by Islamabad as an important factor
in Pakistans competition with Iran.47 For its part, Iran has had plans to build
its own petroleum services hub on the Makran coast at Chah Bahar, only
70 km from Gwadar. Declared a municipality in the 1970s during the reign
of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Chah Bahar originally included basic port facilities and was expanded into a Free Trade Industrial Zone in 1992. By 2002,
soon after it became known that China would be backing the construction of
a deep sea port at Gwadar, Iran reached a deal with India to embark on a
major expansion of its own facilities at Chah Bahar.48 Even though the deep
sea port at Gwadar has struggled to attract significant commercial traffic since
completion, as Irans plans for Chah Bahar have run into repeated delays,49 it
has started to instead consider creating its new (or an additional) mega-port
by expanding the historical city of Bandar Abas, near the Straits of Hormuz.50
With the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) having pulled out of the
40-year contract, it signed in 2007 to manage the port at Gwadar, Pakistans
subsequently announced plan to transfer management to Chinas Overseas
Port Holdings (COPH) means that Irans ambition for its own port (and its
partnership with India) is unlikely to abate in the years to come.51 At the same
time, the developing energy services axis joining Iran to India and separating
it from Pakistan and China continues to develop in other ways as well. There
is, for example, the possibility of an IranIndia gas pipeline bypassing Pakistan
altogether. Of course, this may be even less likely to materialize than the longdiscussed IranPakistanIndiaChina pipeline, especially given the increasing
ties between India and the United States, Irans chief antagonist, since the
signing of the U.S.India Civil Nuclear Agreement in 2008. Regardless, like
Indias rumored support for developing energy transport routes by road and
rail through Iran and Afghanistan, such proposed ties harbor an unmistakable
symbolic importance. Indian financial backing for an overland Chabahar
MilakZaranjDilaram route connecting Iran to Afghanistan, the 213-km
ZaranjDilaram road, has already completed in Afghanistans Nimroz province, and its assistance in upgrading Irans Cha BaharMilak railroad are
clearly meant to rival the proposed overland routes that Pakistan and China
have been contemplating. The most prominent among the latter is the 21st

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century Karakorum Highway project that would link Chinas Xinjiang province to the GilgitBaltistan region of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir as well as a
three thousand kilometer rail line that would connect Chinese Kashgar to
Gwadar.52
Of course, considering the challenges that have emerged even just to
Gwadars development into a significant shipping center, one would have to
be forgiven for concluding that there may be an unbridgeable chasm between
dream and reality. The withdrawal of the PSA from its 40-year contract to
manage the deep sea port, for example, has come in the context of a longrunning legal challenge to the agreements legitimacy that was brought
before Pakistans courts by no less a figure than the Chief Minister of
Balochistan. Still unresolved at the beginning of 2012, the case gave rise to a
December 2010 stay order issued by the countrys Supreme Court disallowing land in Gwadar to be allotted to a foreign company. The Courts reasoning made special note of the skewed nature of the deal that Pakistani officials
had reached with the PSA, which assigned only 9% of the commercial revenues generated by port operations to Pakistan (to say nothing of what it
assigned to Balochistan or, for that matter, the people of the Makran coast
more specifically).53 Even getting the Chinese to agree, at least in principle,
to take over management responsibilities for the port from the PSA has hardly
been easy, coming after more than a year of attempted persuasion that may
still elicit its own round of further judicial wrangling.54
Yet even so, the dominant elements within the Pakistani state are unlikely
to easily give up on their dreams of making Gwadar a new Dubai on the
Arabian Sea. For example, it is now generally assumed that Pakistans increasingly vocal stance in 2012 welcoming China to build a naval base at Gwadar
was quid pro quo not just for the fighter jets and other military equipment
Islamabad was trying to secure from Beijing but also for obtaining a new
partner to manage the port in place of the Singaporeans. In exchange for
saving the port from commercial failure, therefore, Pakistan was expressing
its willingness to help China in realizing its oft-mentioned (and perhaps much
exaggerated) military and commercial ambition for a string of pearls
starting at its mainland and extending all the way to the Gulf of Sudan.
Similarly telling is that during the very same days at the end of January 2013
when Islamabad was confirming COPHs takeover of management duties
for the port, it also announced cabinet approval for Irans offer to finance
one-third of the costs for the approximately 500 mile Pakistan segment of
the IranPakistan gas pipeline.55 Alongside of the long-discussed north
west axis of a TurkmenistanAfghanistanPakistanIndia (TAPI) pipeline
about which the same cabinet announcement indicated vaguely that work was

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continuing56 the IranPakistan(IndiaChina) pipeline would proceed

from west to east, passing from the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchistan
into Pakistani Balochistan on its way to Gwadar.
The ongoing plans for cooperation on an IP(IC) pipeline suggests the
possibility that there may emerge a complementarity rather than competition
of interests between Pakistan and Iran with regard to their respective plans for
expanding port facilities along the Makran coast. So too does Chinas return,
through the management agreement with COPH, likely signal more than a
narrow commitment to supervising a moribund port that Beijing supplied
75% of the US$200 million in construction costs for half a decade earlier.
Beyond the militarystrategic ties that may follow from a Chinese naval base
at Gwadar, there is also the hard fact of the hundreds of millions of additional
dollars in Chinese capital that the management deal will require if the port is
to be made into a truly operational commercial entrepot. Such funds will be
needed to overcome the main problem that has plagued the facility to date,
which has been Islamabads inability to complete the 900 km road required
to link Gwadar to Pakistans northsouth Indus Highway. While the connector was supposed to be finished by 2012, the government has so far built only
60% of the route. The incentive for the Chinese to invest in its completion
will be especially high, therefore, given that without the link road in place the
treasured path by which Beijing ultimately hopes to connect Gwadar to
Chinas Xianjing province will also remain stymied.57
Considering all these factors, there can be little doubt that hopes still
abound on multiple sides for an economic boom to begin reverberating out
from Gwadar. Even just considering the pickings that Islamabad imagines, the
list is eye-opening, including not just the transformation of Balochistans
coast but an entirely new national hydrocarbon economy. From the 21st century oil and gas-services center in Gwadar, many within Pakistans ruling elite
hope to create further momentum to unlock the vast coal deposits under the
Thar desert, which make for the worlds fourth largest reserves at 175 million
tons. More feverish speculation also links Gwadars transformation to the
development and exploration of Pakistans unproven undersea oil reserves,
wildly varying estimates for which have been pegged (unscientifically) at anywhere from a striking 6 billion barrels to an astronomical 6 trillion. Both
figures can be measured against Pakistans current proven reserves of 300
million barrels or, for that matter, Saudi Arabias 270 billion (currently, the
worlds second largest). As the worldwide cluster of industrial interests that
favor using hydraulic fracturing technologies to release gas from shale rock
formations continues to grow, calls for the transformation of the Makran
coast are also likely to further be articulated in terms of the boost it would

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F. Chaudhry

give to tapping into Pakistans own shale reserves. As suggested earlier, these
may far outweigh the countrys currently proven supply of natural gas.58
Even putting aside the ominous sign that such visions portend when considered alongside of global societys goal of staving off catastrophic climate
change, they seem to give little attention to what the proposed transformation of Balochistans coast is supposed to mean for the people of and places
like Gwadar, to say nothing of Balochistan and Pakistans other peripheries
more generally. It seems unlikely that the scenario of maximum grandeur
involving enormous levels of foreign investment, a confluence of interests
with competitors like Iran, and the imminent development of pipeline and
land transport routes from east to west and north to south (to China and
Central Asia) will be likely to alter the question of distributional justice
that lies at the heart of the unrest in Gwadar and in Balochistan more generally. Judged from the intraprovincial perspective, that is, the hope of Pakistans
ruling military and bureaucratic elite to remake Gwadar into a new Dubai on
the Arabian sea is liable to appear less as a plan for transforming southern
Balochistan into a launching pad for economic revolution than the basis of
deepening an existing dynamic of growth without development. After many
previous years of the same, the evident constraints and entrenched interests
that have prevented local populations from harnessing economic gains in
Balochistan seem likely to again play themselves out by extending an already
familiar arc. After decades during which the claims by a sub-national group
for greater control, dignity, and autonomy have been ignored and/or violently suppressed, we are tragically left to watch as the same is done to its
increasingly vehement (and desperate) claim for independence based on its
ever more plausible cry that a foreign entity is colonizing its homeland and
expropriating its resources.
From the Baloch perspective, then, one can imagine that the idea of
Gwadar as Pakistans answer to Dubai reads as a scandal, captured in microcosmic form in the events that were so notably documented in a 2008 report
by the Karachi news magazine The Herald. Reporting under the headline
The Great Land Robbery, the story, by reporter Maqbool Ahmed, made
notorious the nature of the 2007 deal between the Pakistani government and
the PSA for the management of the deep water port at Gwadar. In the course
of his investigations, Ahmed uncovered a blatantly fraudulent mechanism
underlying the acquisition of huge chunks of land in and around Gwadar for
next to nothing. As he discovered, hundreds of thousands of acres were
acquired by first bribing local revenue agents to register land in their own
names only to then immediately sell their new property to wealthy industrialists, real estate developers, and military-bureaucratic officials from urban

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centers like Lahore and Karachi.59 On grounds of this enormous scam alone,
which arose already during the first phase of Islamabads construction plan in
Gwadar from 2002 to 2006, one is hard-pressed to see how local inhabitants
could have much confidence about the next phase of construction. From
their standpoint, Islamabads plan to remake Gwadars (expanding) landscape
evidently involves not just ports and refineries, naval bases and free trade/
export zones, and residential and industrial parks, but many other types of
spaces that are likely to be less than welcoming to the Baloch.
The attitude of one Pakistani official toward Gwadars fisherpeople that
Robert Kaplan reports is likely held much more widely within government
circles: [t]hey dont have a chance. Modernity will wipe out their traditional
way of life.60 While such tropes about modernity and tradition can often be
heard in the context of conflicts about development, they have a way of
obfuscating what may really amount to a flagrant disregard for distributional
justice, especially when the demand for a greater attention to it is made by
the weak. Thus, the lens of modernity versus tradition does little to clarify the
real substantive assertions that complainants are usually making. Even putting
aside the militarys renewed aggression in the interior of Balochistan since
2004, the discontent of the Baloch population in and around Gwadar seems
to be less about rejecting modernity than it is about expressing their opposition to what is seen as well-off Pakistani officialdom and marginalized Punjabi
laborers overtaking their land and institutions of state monopolizing their
resources in the name of a national interest that has rarely been their own.
At the same time, the thousands of disappearances and kidnappings to
which ordinary and activist Baloch have been subjected over the course of the
last decade, the assassinations and extra-judicial killings, the displacement of
tens of thousands more as a result of the military crackdown, and the terror
wrought by Islamabads notorious Frontier Corps and intelligence agencies:61
all of these combine to now ethnicize resentment in profoundly dangerous
ways. Punjabi, Sindhi, and Urdu speakers who have been in Baluchistan for
generations or even centuries are confining themselves to the city of Quetta
or the provinces Pashtun-majority areas, fearing that they are increasingly
regarded as settlers who are fair game for harassment and murder.62 The
militarys divide and rule tactics are likewise creating increasing resentment
for the provinces Pashtun minority, who have been assigned their own districts as two million resettled Afghan refugees have been added to their numbers. It is now common to hear that the provision of government shelter and
support to Pashto-speaking refugees stands in sharp contrast to what the
government has done for the ethnic Baloch in their own times of greatest
need, especially in the wake of the devastating floods of 2010.63 Likewise,

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human rights and civil society organizations from outside of Balochistan, and
especially from the Punjab, are now looked on with suspicion as agents of
Islamabad.64 Even the growing sectarian violence within Balochistan over the
last eight years, especially against the provinces shii hazara community, may
be a case in point.65 This is because there is no small degree of plausibility in
Baloch suggestions that Talibanization in the province has been promoted by
Islamabad itself in order to acquire a freer hand in suppressing autonomist
sentiment.66
At the same time, the inherent conflicts that Islamabads economic policies create are confined not just to the ominous implications of demographic
upheaval or ethno-sectarian conflict. Amidst the construction activity in
Gwadar since 2005, actual or potential labor migration from outside of
Balochistan is not the only factor that has inspired fear among local populations who have never been given much basis to believe that development
is geared toward their own interests. Much the same has been true of infrastructure construction as well. For example, the Mirani Dam one of
President Musharrafs signal development projects in the province has
long been suspected by Baloch to have been built solely to provide potable
water for the millions of workers Islamabad was planning to import into
Gwadar.67 Similarly, few believe that the national highway system that is being
routed through Balochistan is for the benefit of the provinces people. As one
Baloch nationalist (whose own demands stopped short of full independence
for the province) pointed out when interviewed by the staff of the Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), the newly developed highway along
Balochistans southern coast failed to pass through even a single union
council of Makran district, leaving him to conclude that it has been built
for the benefit of civil and military bureaucracy [sic].68
None of this, of course, is to even mention the more direct effect that
increasing militarization is having on development in the province. As was
first announced in 2007, for example, there are some 11,000 acres of land
that the military has taken to construct a new integrated defense complex
for itself in Gwadar.69 Moreover, even putting aside the all too familiar list of
Balochistans woeful statistics relating to social indicators involving things like
literacy, nutrition, and health, the already minimal human development infrastructure in the province has been dealt a major blow over the last several
years. The governments development profile for Gwadar, for example,
proudly declares that the district hosts some 246 primary, middle and high
schools that educate 28,750 students (of which 1,449 were enrolled in colleges, with a rough parity between boys and girls).70 Yet it does little to put
these figures in either a quantitative or qualitative context, entirely failing to

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mention the findings by the likes of HRCP, the most meticulous human
rights reporter in the country, that [i]n Balochistan, education is destroyed
due to the fact that [a] large number of both public and private schools and
colleges are closed amidst the ongoing counterinsurgency campaign.71

Conclusion
What the future holds for the political economy of hydrocarbon resources in
Pakistan especially when considered as part of an Asia that grows ever
more hungry for energy cannot be known with certainty. What is clear is
that to date, the story has been one that cannot simply or even mainly be told
from the traditional standpoint of national political boundaries or macroeconomic growth projections. In the periphery of both Pakistan and Balochistan,
a much more telling historical narrative is being played out. If there is a difference between following the political economy of energy and simply following the economics of energy, it requires that we hold tight to the thread of
this narrative. For only in so doing can we disaggregate the likelihood of a
lack of development from large-scale plans for growth. Only in so doing,
moreover, will we find that conflicts involving dispossession and state counter-violence are rarely if ever exclusively or even mainly about disarming the
tendency toward militancy and terrorism or some blanket opposition to
modernity. Rather, they are much more likely to involve obscured questions about distributional justice, thus reminding us how blurred the lines
always are between the politics and economics of energy.

Endnotes
1. Mir, N (2010). Gwadar on the Global Chessboard: Pakistans Identity, History & Culture.
Lahore: Ferozsons Ltd., p. 8.
2. Jalal, A (1995). Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative and
Historical Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 18.
3. It is estimated that as few as 200 former Indian Civil Service officers were available to
meet the challenges of staffing Pakistans own civil service in 1947. The new countrys
economic circumstances were, perhaps, even more dire. Pakistan moved into the era of its
independence with 17.5% of British Indias financial assets and, even more tellingly, no
more than Rs. 200 million in cash balances (although another Rs. 550 million were added
to this after August 1947 as Pakistans final share of British Indias cash balances.) State of
Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistans Political Economy of Defence. New York:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 32, 47.
4. Ibid., 70. During Pakistans first decade allotments for defense and basic civil administration absorbed approximately 75% of the countrys revenues (the great majority of which
fell under the first category). This can be contrasted with Indian defense spending, which

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152

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.

16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

F. Chaudhry
absorbed no more than 12 to 14% of the expenditure prior to the countrys war with
China in 1962. Jalal, Democracy and Authoritarianism, 140.
Zaidi, A (2005). Issues in Pakistans Economy. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 5.
By the traditional measures of macroeconomic success, and especially when compared to
Pakistans performance in the era of structural adjustment and its aftermath since the end
of the Zia ul-Haq era in 1988, as Zaidi notes there can be little argument that General
Ayub Khans largely illiberal policies were a thoroughgoing success. Between 1963 and
1968, for example, the growth rate in manufacturing leapt by as much as 17%; during his
second half-decade in power it increased by as much as 10%. Ibid., 28.
During the countrys first decade, the agricultural sector averaged an anemic 1.43%
growth rate. Ibid. The sectors performance improved considerably after this point, as
Ayubs developmentalist regime attempted to redress the previous imbalance, even if in
ways that still tended to privilege functional inequality, here by supporting dominant elements in the agrarian hierarchy and agribusiness over cultivators and smaller holders.
Thus, during Ayubs tenure the rate of growth in agriculture averaged 5.1%, with the
figure reaching as high as 11%. Ibid., 28, 56.
As is widely understood, the unitary structure of government was also intended to prevent
the Bengali majority of East Pakistan from achieving dominance over the countrys parliament and institutions of central government, which was dominated early on by Punjabi
politicians and officials. See, generally, Jalal, State of Martial Rule.
Located in the central part of the contemporary province of Balochistan, Kalat was bordered by Kharan to the southwest (next to Iran). The princely state of Lasbela comprised
the coastal regions adjacent to Sindh and the state of Makran made up the remainder of
the coastal areas along the Arabian Sea.
Siddiqi, FH (2012). The Politics of Ethnicity in Pakistan: The Baloch, Sindhi and Mohajir
Ethnic Movements. New York: Routledge, pp. 5556.
Sah, SL (2003). Encyclopaedia of Petroleum Science Engineering. Delhi: Kalpaz
Publications, pp. 311314.
Dolan, P (1990). Pakistan: A history of petroleum exploration and future potential.
Geological Society, London, Special Publication, 50, 503524.
Andrus JR and AF Mohammed (1958). The Economy of Pakistan. London: Oxford
University Press, pp. 207208.
Ebinger, CK (2011). Energy and Security in South Asia: Cooperation Or Conflict?
Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, p. 73.
Andrus and Mohammed, The Economy of Pakistan, 217.
This came with the discovery of the Dhodak field some 270 km from Sui in the Sulaiman
mountains of the Dera Ghazi Khan district of the Punjab in 1976. History of Energy in
Pakistan-Time line, Dawn, July 12, 2012. Available at http://dawn.com/2012/07/12/
history-of-energy-in-pakistan-time-line/.
See Pakistan Petroleum Limited, PPL-operated Fields: Sui Gas Field. Available at
http://www.ppl.com.pk/content/sui-gas-field-overview.
Blood, PR (ed.) (1994). Pakistan: A Country Study. Washington, DC: Federal Research
Division, United States Library of Congress, p. 186.
Mari Gas Field, Economic Review (Karachi), 29(3), March 1998.
Blood, Pakistan: A Country Study, chapter 3.
Ibid.

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21. United States Energy Information Administration (USEIA), Graph of Natural Gas
Production. In Overview Data for Pakistan. Available at http://www.eia.gov/countries/
country-data.cfm?fips=PK&trk=p1#ng.
22. Blood, Pakistan: A Country Study, chapter 3.
23. USEIA, Graph of Natural Gas Production. Available at http://www.eia.gov/countries/
country-data.cfm?fips=PK&trk=p1#ng). Because Pakistan has been neither a net importer
nor exporter of natural gas the countrys production figures are synonymous with its
consumption levels.
24. USEIA, Graph of Natural Gas Reserves Proved. Available at ibid.
25. USEIA, Graph of Total Oil Production. In Overview Data for Pakistan. Available at
http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=PK&trk=p1#pet.
26. Ibid. Between 1980 and 2011 imports have been continuously accelerating, save for the
two periods from 1999 to 2004 (when imports declined from 311,000 to 262,000 barrels
per day) and 2009 to 2011 (when imports declined from 333,000 to 309,000 barrels per
day).
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid. Major swings in the total volume of recoverable reserves have occurred throughout
this period. Between 1982 and 1984, for example, reserve levels declined from 284
million to 83 million barrels; from 1992 to 1993, proven reserves jumped from 162 million to 412 million barrels and then declined by the next year, in 1994, back down to 203
million; from 2001 to 2003, proven reserves increased from 208 million at which level,
they had approximately been since 1994 to 310 million; finally, the noticeable increase
between 2008 and 2009 from 289 million to 339 million barrels has in the last three years
given way to a steady decline back to 281 million barrels in 2012.
29. Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Resources, Hydrocarbon Development Institute of
Pakistan, Pakistan Energy Yearbook 2011, Table 1.1.
30. See, e.g., Pakistan Energy Crisis to Hurt Government, Dawn, November 4, 2010.
Available at http://dawn.com/2010/11/04/pakistan-energy-crisis-to-hurt-government/)
and Haque, A (2011). The solution of Pakistans energy crisis. The Express Tribune, July 5.
Available at http://tribune.com.pk/story/202976/the-solution-to-pakistans-energycrisis/.
31. LPG an effective alternative to CNG: Dr Asim, Pakistan Today, May 28, 2012.
Available at http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/05/28/city/islamabad/lpg-aneffective-alternative-to-cng-dr-asim/.
32. Santana, R (2012). Gas shortage exposes Pakistans energy crisis. The Associated Press,
December 12. Available at http://bigstory.ap.org/article/gas-shortage-exposespakistans-energy-crisis.
33. Ibid.
34. See, e.g., Zaheer, F (2011). SSGC puts off gas outages plan temporarily. The Express
Tribune, July 26. Available at http://tribune.com.pk/story/217300/ssgc-puts-off-gasoutages-plan-temporarily and Kakahekhel, I (2011). 18th amendment to solve oil profit
issue. Daily Times, December 6. Available at http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.
asp?page=2011\12\06\story_6-12-2011_pg5_7.
35. Kiani, K (2012). Gas exploration in Kohlu planned. Dawn, August 27. Available at
http://dawn.com/2012/08/27/gas-exploration-in-kohlu-planned.
36. International Crisis Group (2007). Pakistan: The forgotten conflict in Balochistan
Islamabad/Brussels, October 22, 2.

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37. See, e.g., Sharan, S (2012). Shale gas solution? Dawn, June 26. Available at http://
dawn.com/2012/06/26/shale-gas-solution/ and Uzair, A (2012). Externalities: Shale
gas and the risks we are taking. The Express Tribune, May 27. Available at http://tribune.
com.pk/story/384951/externalities-shale-gas-and-the-risks-we-are-taking.
38. Mir, Gwadar on the Global Chessboard, 130131.
39. Ibid, 113.
40. Chaudhry, S (2007). Gwadar oil city: Pakistan, China to sign agreements in early 2008.
Daily Times, October 17. Available at http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?
page=2007\10\17\story_17-10-2007_pg5_1.
41. Fazl-e-Haider, S (2009). China calls halt to Gwadar refinery. Asia Times, August 14.
Available at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH14Df02.html.
42. Ibid. The target capacity was expected to be 200300,000 barrels of oil daily.
43. Atwal, A (2007). ChinaIndia Relations: Contemporary Dynamics. New York: Routledge,
p. 68.
44. In 2004, two Chinese engineers were killed while working on the Gomal Zam Dam project in south Waziristan. The siege at the Lal Masjid (the Red Mosque) near Islamabad
that made international headlines in the summer of 2007 involved the kidnapping of
several Chinese women who were then held hostage. The actual siege of the mosque that
brought the conflict to an end resulted in the death of several Chinese nationals. Islamic
militants also killed a Chinese woman in Peshawar in 2012, and it is suggested that attacks
on a naval base in Karachi in May 2011 by militants was partly motivated by a search for
Chinese nationals working at the facility. For a discussion of these attacks and the strategic
import the tactic of anti-Chinese violence is perceived to have in the ongoing conflict
between the state and autonomist/nationalist groups in Balochistan and fundamentalist
religious militants, see Bansal, (2012). Why Pakistans rebels are attacking Chinese projects. Rediff News, July 17. Available at http://www.rediff.com/news/column/whypakistans-rebels-are-attacking-chinese-projects/20120717.htm.
45. Wright, T (2011). China pullout deals blow to Pakistan. The Wall Street Journal,
September 30.
46. Chinas motives are usually ascribed either to its energy rivalry with India or its desire for
a foothold in the Arabian sea as part of its military rivalry with the United States.
47. Atwal, ChinaIndia Relations, 67.
48. Laruelle, M and S Peyrouse (2011). Mapping Central Asia: Indian Perceptions and
Strategies. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, pp. 103104.
49. Jaffrelot, C (2011). A tale of two ports: Gwadar and Chabahar display Chinese-Indian
rivalry in the Arabian Sea. YaleGlobal Online, January 7. Available at http://yaleglobal.
yale.edu/content/tale-two-ports.
50. Sen, SP (2010). Crouching tiger, hidden dragon: India, China, and the dynamics of
energy security. In MP Amineh and Y Guang (eds.), The Globalization of Energy: China
and the European Union. Leiden: Brill, p. 171.
51. Bagchi, I (2013). India irked as China gets Pakistans strategic Gwadar port. The Economic
Times, February 2. Available at http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politicsand-nation/india-irked-as-china-gets-pakistans-strategic-gwadar-port/articleshow/
18299706.cms.
52. Jaffrelot, A Tale of Two Ports. Jaffrelot points out how impractical both ideas may be.
The KashgarGwadar rail line, in particular, could run to as much as US$30 million per
kilometer for those parts of the route that would pass through the most treacherous peaks.

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53. Reuters, Supreme Court hears challenge to Gwadar port deal. Dawn, December 8, 2010.
Available at http://dawn.com/2010/12/08/supreme-court-hears-challenge-to-gwadarport-deal/.
54. Lee, P (2011). China drops the Gwadar hot potato. Asia Times, May 28. Available at
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ME28Ad01.html.
55. Walsh, D (2013). Chinese company will run strategic Pakistani port. New York Times,
January 31. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/world/asia/chinesefirm-will-run-strategic-pakistani-port-at-gwadar.html. Whether the announcement is not
an election season ploy and whether the Zardari government can raise the remaining one
billion dollars needed over and above the US$500 million that Iran has agreed to in order
to fully fund the cost of Pakistans segment of the pipeline remain to be seen.
56. Economic Desk (2013). Pakistan, Iran pipeline approval encouraging. The Tehran Times,
February 1. Available at http://www.tehrantimes.com/economy-and-business/105293pakistan-iran-pipeline-approval-encouraging.
57. The Associated Press (2013). China poised to control strategic Gwadar port, February 2.
58. See, supra, at note 37. The USEIAs estimates put Pakistans shale gas reserves at 1.4 trillion cubic meters, as compared to a current figure for its natural gas reserves of approximately 800 billion cubic meters. See USEIA, U.S. World Shale Gas Resources: An Initial
Assessment of 14 Regions Outside the United States, April 2011, Table 1, p. 3.
59. Ahmed, M (2008). The great land robbery. The Herald, June.
60. Quoted in Robert Kaplan, Pakistans Fatal Shore, The Atlantic, May 2009.
61. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) (2012). Hopes, Fears and Alienation in
Balochistan: Report of an HRCP Fact Finding Mission, May 1519, 2012. Lahore: Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan.
62. Ibid., 11.
63. International Crisis Group (2007). Pakistan: The forgotten conflict of Balochistan. Asia
Briefing No. 9, October 22.
64. HRCP (2009). Pushed to the Wall: Report of the HRCP Fact-Finding Mission in
Balochistan: 511 October 2009. Lahore: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
65. Timeline: Hazara killings in Balochistan. Dawn, January 11, 2013. Available at http://
dawn.com/2013/01/11/timeline-hazara-killings-in-balochistan/.
66. Claims about Islamabads promoting Talibanization in Balochistan carry some weight,
moreover, even absent demonstrating planned collusion by the government in gruesome
killings like those which took place on 10 January 2013 when a car bomb took the lives
of nearly 100 people in a horrific attack against Quettas half-million hazaras. See Hashim,
A (2013). Pakistans hazara shias living under siege. Al-Jazeera, January 18. Available at
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/2013117124512947691.html.
This is because each such incident only proves more suggestive of the way that the spread
of sunni militancy to Balochistan (where it has never had very deep roots) creates more
visible justification for the military establishment to tighten its hold on the province.
67. International Crisis Group, Pakistan: The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistan, 9.
68. HRCP, Pushed to the Wall, 12.
69. International Crisis Group, Pakistan: The Forgotten Conflict of Balochistan, 10.
70. Planning & Development Department, Government of Balochistan in Collaboration with
UNICEF, District Development Profile, 2011: Gwadar, 77.
71. HRCP, Pushed to the Wall, 12.

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