Who Owns Oil and Gas in Pakistan? The Constitutional and Statutory Evolution of Petroleum Rights

The question of who “owns” petroleum in Pakistan appears deceptively simple. In reality, the legal answer has changed considerably over the course of the subcontinent’s constitutional history and, even today, cannot properly be expressed merely by saying that oil and gas belong either to the Federal Government or to the Provinces.

Three concepts must be kept analytically separate. The first is proprietary or beneficial ownership of petroleum and natural gas in situ. The second is legislative, regulatory and administrative authority over exploration, development and production. The third concerns rights in the surface land upon or beneath which petroleum operations are conducted.

These concepts overlap, but they are not interchangeable. A Province may possess a constitutionally recognised ownership interest in petroleum without possessing an unrestricted power to devise its own petroleum licensing regime. Conversely, federal legislation regulating oilfields does not necessarily mean that every relevant proprietary interest must belong exclusively to the Federation. A private owner of the surface land may have enforceable rights to possession, access compensation or surface rent without thereby owning the petroleum reservoir beneath the land.

That distinction is essential to understanding how Pakistan travelled from the constitutional arrangements of British India, through the Regulation of Mines and Oil-fields and Mineral Development (Government Control) Act, 1948 and the Minerals (Acquisition and Transfer) Order, 1961, to the radically different arrangement now contained in Article 172(3) of the Constitution following the Eighteenth Amendment.

The Pre-Partition Position: Petroleum Was Not Simply “Owned by the Provinces”

It is tempting to describe petroleum as a provincial subject during British rule. That description is, however, too broad if it is intended to address ownership rather than legislative competence.

Under the Government of India Act, 1935, the regulation of mines, oilfields and mineral development was divided between the Federal and Provincial legislative fields. Entry 36 of the Federal Legislative List empowered the Federation in relation to the regulation of mines and oilfields and mineral development to the extent that federal control was declared by federal law to be expedient in the public interest. Entry 23 of the Provincial Legislative List dealt with the regulation of mines and oilfields and mineral development, but expressly made that competence subject to the federal entry. The Federal List separately dealt with petroleum, insofar as possession, storage and transportation of dangerously inflammable substances were concerned, and with labour and safety in mines and oilfields.

Importantly, no general federal declaration under Entry 36 had been made before Partition. A statement in the Indian legislature in November 1946 therefore described regulation and development of oilfields as being generally within the discretion of Provincial Governments because no federal law bringing the subject under federal control had yet been passed. Petroleum was then being commercially produced in, amongst other areas, Attock and Jhelum in Punjab.

That history supports the proposition that oilfield regulation was substantially provincial immediately before Partition, but it does not establish a universal rule that the proprietary title to every petroleum deposit belonged to a provincial government.

The distinction is important. Legislative competence to regulate mines or oilfields is not itself a conveyance of mineral ownership. Mineral rights under colonial land tenures could differ according to local law, settlement arrangements, Crown reservations and proprietary interests. Modern judicial examination of the 1935 constitutional arrangements has likewise distinguished the regulation of mineral development from the underlying ownership of mineral rights.

The more accurate historical formulation is therefore that immediately before Pakistan’s creation, the regulation and development of oilfields ordinarily operated within the provincial legislative sphere unless and until federal control was validly assumed; proprietary petroleum and mineral rights, however, could not be determined merely by reference to those legislative entries.

Pakistan and the Regulation of Mines and Oil-fields and Mineral Development (Government Control) Act, 1948

Pakistan soon moved towards central control.

The Regulation of Mines and Oil-fields and Mineral Development (Government Control) Act, 1948—Act XXIV of 1948, enacted on 8 January 1949—created the basic statutory architecture through which petroleum concessions would be centrally regulated. Its stated purpose was to make provision for the regulation of mines and oilfields and mineral development under government control.

Section 2 gave the appropriate Government extensive rule-making powers concerning, amongst other matters, prospecting and exploration licences, mining leases and concessions, renewal and revocation, rents and royalties, production, storage, distribution, refining and the prices at which petroleum could be bought or sold. The Act consequently established a highly interventionist concessionary regime rather than leaving petroleum exploitation to the incidents of ordinary land ownership.

The Act’s power to regulate the price at which petroleum could be sold does not establish that petroleum remained privately owned. A price-control provision demonstrates regulatory jurisdiction over a commodity after production or during commercial disposition; it does not determine ownership of the petroleum reservoir before extraction.

A concessionaire may, for example, acquire contractual rights to produce and sell petroleum while the underlying resource remains vested in the State. Regulation of the resulting sale price is entirely compatible with such a system.

Equally, however, the 1948 Act should not itself be treated as the principal vesting enactment. Its central purpose was regulation and control. The much clearer proprietary intervention came in 1961.

The historical importance of the 1948 legislation is nevertheless considerable. Section 6, in its consolidated form, treats the Federal Government as the “appropriate Government” in relation to oilfields, gas fields, mineral oil and gas, whilst the Provincial Government is the appropriate Government in relation to other mines and mineral development. The Supreme Court subsequently described the pre-1956 petroleum and mineral legislative regime as having been administered federally through the 1948 Act. In Messrs Khurshid Soap & Chemical Industries (Pvt.) Ltd v Federation of Pakistan, reported as PLD 2020 SC 641, the Court traced the constitutional history and observed that the 1956 Constitution expressly retained “mineral oil and natural gas” in the Federal Legislative List.

The 1956 Constitution: Oil and Gas Become an Express Federal Legislative Subject

The Constitution of 1956 removed much of the ambiguity that had characterised the earlier allocation of regulatory powers. Entry 15 of its Federal Legislative List expressly identified:

“Mineral oil and natural gas.”

The subject was therefore placed squarely within federal legislative competence. The Supreme Court has subsequently relied upon this constitutional history in explaining the distinct treatment afforded to oil and natural gas within Pakistan’s successive constitutional arrangements.

The 1956 Constitution also addressed marine minerals. Article 134(3) vested lands, minerals and other things of value underlying the ocean within Pakistan’s territorial waters in the Federal Government. This was a significant express constitutional vesting rule and foreshadowed the strong federal proprietary model which emerged in 1961. The historical provisions are reproduced and analysed in the Senate Chairman’s 2018 ruling concerning operationalisation of Article 172(3).

The Minerals (Acquisition and Transfer) Order, 1961: Express Federal Vesting

The decisive pre-1973 proprietary enactment was the Minerals (Acquisition and Transfer) Order, 1961 (President’s Order No. 8 of 1961).

Unlike the primarily regulatory language of the 1948 Act, the 1961 Order spoke directly in terms of acquisition, transfer and vesting.

Its definition of “minerals” included surface and sub-surface natural deposits and expressly included natural deposits of fuel, oil and gas. Clause 3 then provided, notwithstanding contrary law, custom, usage, agreement, decree or order of a court, that all minerals and the rights appertaining to them stood acquired by, transferred to and vested in the Central Government free from encumbrances. Existing leases, concessions and agreements were preserved through deeming provisions under which they were treated as having been granted or made on behalf of the Central Government.

The Order further stated that compensation was not payable for the acquisition or transfer effected under it.

The absence of compensation under the Order should not be treated as proof that the measure was merely declaratory or that mineral rights must already have belonged to government. Such an inference would be unnecessarily speculative. The operative language of the Order itself is sufficient: it expressly says that the relevant minerals and rights “shall stand acquired by, and transferred to, and shall vest in” the Central Government. There is therefore no need to construct an implied theory of pre-existing ownership from the absence of compensation.

Indeed, the transitional provisions contemplating leases or agreements previously granted by Provincial Governments or by other parties are themselves a reason for caution before assuming that mineral ownership had invariably been federal before 1961.

The 1961 Order remains constitutionally significant. It appears in Part II of the First Schedule to the Constitution of 1973.

The 1962 Constitution and the Continuation of Federal Control

The Constitution of 1962 continued the federal model. Mineral oil and natural gas appeared in the Central Legislative List, while Article 146(2) vested lands, minerals and other things of value underlying the ocean within territorial waters in the Central Government. The Senate’s detailed historical examination of Article 172 records this continuity and describes oil and gas as remaining federally vested during this period under President’s Order No. 8 of 1961.

By the eve of the 1973 Constitution, therefore, both the legislative treatment and the proprietary structure of petroleum had become markedly centralised.

The Original 1973 Constitution: Federal Ownership, but Important Provincial Rights

The original Constitution of 1973 did not simply reproduce every aspect of the earlier arrangements, but its structure remained strongly federal in relation to petroleum.

Mineral oil and natural gas were retained within the Federal Legislative List. They remain there today, presently appearing as Entry 2 of Part II of the Fourth Schedule:

“Mineral oil and natural gas; liquids and substances declared by Federal law to be dangerously inflammable.”

At the same time, the Constitution recognised important provincial interests in natural resources.

Article 158 established the principle that the Province in which a well-head of natural gas is situated has precedence over other parts of Pakistan in meeting requirements from that well-head, subject to the commitments and obligations existing on the commencing day. Pakistani courts have repeatedly treated Article 158 as a substantive constitutional priority distinct from the question of ownership.

Article 161 also created a significant fiscal entitlement for producing Provinces. In its present form, following the Eighteenth Amendment, the net proceeds of federal excise duty on natural gas levied at the well-head, together with royalty collected by the Federal Government, are payable to the Province in which the gas well-head is situated. The net proceeds of federal excise duty on oil levied at the well-head are likewise payable to the Province in which that oil well-head is situated.

These provisions are important because they demonstrate why ownership, regulation, priority of consumption and fiscal entitlement must not be collapsed into a single concept.

The Eighteenth Amendment Changed the Ownership Question Fundamentally

The most important change to the petroleum ownership regime occurred through the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010.

The amendment altered Article 172(2) and inserted the new Article 172(3). The current constitutional position consequently reflects a distinct post-2010 settlement.

Article 172(2) now provides that:

“All lands, minerals and other things of value within the continental shelf or underlying the ocean beyond the territorial waters of Pakistan shall vest in the Federal Government.”

Article 172(3) then provides:

“Subject to the existing commitments and obligations, mineral oil and natural gas within the Province or the territorial waters adjacent thereto shall vest jointly and equally in that Province and the Federal Government.”

The change was express: the Eighteenth Amendment substituted “beyond” for the previous language in Article 172(2) and added Article 172(3).

This produces the modern constitutional division.

Onshore mineral oil and natural gas situated within a Province are jointly and equally vested in that Province and the Federal Government.

Mineral oil and natural gas situated within territorial waters adjacent to a Province are likewise jointly and equally vested in the relevant Province and Federal Government, subject to existing commitments and obligations.

Lands, minerals and other things of value within the continental shelf or underlying the ocean beyond Pakistan’s territorial waters vest in the Federal Government under Article 172(2).

Accordingly, it is no longer legally correct to say that all onshore petroleum in Pakistan is the exclusive property of the Federal Government.

The Eighteenth Amendment created a constitutional co-ownership model.

Does “Joint and Equal Ownership” Mean the Provinces Control Petroleum Licensing?

Not automatically.

This is one of the most important subtleties in Pakistan’s contemporary petroleum law.

Article 172(3) concerns vesting and ownership, but mineral oil and natural gas continue to appear in Part II of the Federal Legislative List. Moreover, Article 154 provides that the Council of Common Interests (“CCI”) shall formulate and regulate policies concerning matters in Part II of the Federal Legislative List and exercise supervision and control over the related institutions. The Eighteenth Amendment itself strengthened this formulation of the CCI’s constitutional role.

Parliament therefore retains legislative competence over mineral oil and natural gas, while the CCI occupies an important constitutional position in policy, supervision and federal-provincial coordination.

The resulting structure is considerably more sophisticated than either “federal control” or “provincial control”.

The constitutional settlement instead combines joint proprietary interests, federal legislative competence, CCI policy and supervisory responsibilities, provincial fiscal and supply entitlements, and an operational petroleum concession system that continues to be administered principally through federal petroleum institutions.

This has not been free from controversy.

A detailed Ruling of the Chairman of the Senate dated 23 January 2018 concerning the “Operationalization of joint ownership of mineral oil and natural gas [and] implementation of Article 172(3)” records competing federal and provincial understandings of the consequences of the Eighteenth Amendment. It acknowledged that before the Amendment ownership was treated as exclusively federal under President’s Order No. 8 of 1961 and that Article 172(3) subsequently conferred joint and equal ownership upon the Federation and the relevant Province. The ruling also examined the continuing legislative and regulatory role of the Federation and the demand for meaningful provincial participation in administration.

That parliamentary ruling is valuable as an institutional analysis of the constitutional controversy, although it should not be mistaken for a judgment of the Supreme Court conclusively resolving every aspect of Article 172(3).

For investors and petroleum companies, the practical lesson is therefore important: joint ownership under Article 172(3) does not justify ignoring federal petroleum legislation, DGPC licensing requirements, the applicable petroleum rules or the institutional role of the CCI.

The Current Onshore Petroleum Regime

The principal contemporary regulatory instrument remains the Pakistan Onshore Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Rules, 2013, as amended, made under section 2 of the 1948 Act.

The Rules expressly apply to Pakistan’s onshore areas and regulate petroleum rights, other than coal-bed methane rights falling outside their stated scope. They establish the legal machinery for reconnaissance permits, exploration licences and development and production leases.

An exploration licence grants an exclusive petroleum exploration right over the specified area, while development and production proceed through the lease and petroleum-concession architecture prescribed by the Rules and relevant agreements.

The continuing operation of this federal statutory framework after the Eighteenth Amendment illustrates the distinction between the constitutional ownership of the resource and the regulatory machinery through which a private petroleum company acquires the right to explore and produce it.

The petroleum company does not acquire oil and gas merely because it has bought or leased the land above a reservoir. It requires a valid petroleum right granted under the governing public-law regime.

Does a Private Landowner Own the Petroleum Beneath His or Her Land?

Ordinarily, no.

This is another area in which terminology derived from ordinary property law can be misleading.

Following the 1961 vesting regime and, more importantly today, Article 172(3) of the Constitution, mineral oil and natural gas situated within a Province are constitutionally vested jointly and equally in the relevant Province and the Federation. Private ownership of the surface therefore does not confer private ownership of the petroleum reservoir beneath it.

That does not mean the surface landowner possesses no legal rights.

The Onshore Petroleum Rules themselves recognise the separate legal consequences of using privately or otherwise separately held surface land. Rule 42 requires the holder of a petroleum lease to pay surface rent for land used or occupied for petroleum operations at the rate assessable under the applicable revenue and rent law of the district. The Rules also separately address rights of entry upon and use of land for petroleum operations.

Thus, a legally important distinction arises between:

ownership of the petroleum, which is governed by the Constitution and petroleum legislation;

the petroleum right, which arises through a permit, licence, lease, concession or production-sharing arrangement; and

surface rights, which remain governed by land, revenue, acquisition, compensation and related laws.

A petroleum licence is not a conveyance of the underlying surface estate, just as ownership of the surface estate is not a petroleum licence.

Offshore Petroleum: The 1976 Act Is No Longer the Current Maritime Statute

Pakistan’s maritime legislation also requires careful treatment in any contemporary analysis of offshore petroleum rights.

The Territorial Waters and Maritime Zones Act, 1976 is no longer the governing statute. It was expressly repealed by section 34 of the Pakistan Maritime Zones Act, 2023 (Act XVIII of 2023), which came into force on 26 April 2023. Acts done, liabilities incurred, rules made and notifications issued under the repealed legislation are protected through an express savings provision.

The 2023 Act now provides the domestic statutory framework for Pakistan’s territorial sea and other maritime zones and expressly seeks to give effect to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, which Pakistan ratified in 1997.

The breadth of Pakistan’s territorial sea remains twelve nautical miles measured from the baseline.

The exclusive economic zone is an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea extending to 200 nautical miles from the baseline. Within the EEZ, Pakistan enjoys sovereign rights for exploration, development, exploitation, conservation and management of living and non-living natural resources. The Act expressly prohibits a person or company from exploring or exploiting those resources, drilling or conducting relevant operations except pursuant to an agreement, licence or authority of the Federal Government or an authorised federal authority.

The continental shelf is separately regulated under the Act, consistently with Pakistan’s rights under the law of the sea.

The Constitutional Division of Offshore Petroleum

Maritime legislation must nevertheless be read together with Article 172 of the Constitution.

The first twelve nautical miles cannot simply be grouped together with the remainder of Pakistan’s offshore area for purposes of petroleum ownership.

Where mineral oil or natural gas is situated within territorial waters adjacent to a Province, Article 172(3) expressly provides for joint and equal vesting in the Province and Federal Government, subject to existing commitments and obligations.

Once one proceeds beyond territorial waters, Article 172(2) assumes central importance. Lands, minerals and other things of value within the continental shelf or underlying the ocean beyond territorial waters vest in the Federal Government.

Accordingly, an offshore petroleum block may be subject to a different constitutional proprietary analysis depending upon its geographical position.

That distinction should be incorporated into petroleum due diligence rather than treating the entire offshore area as a single undifferentiated federal property regime.

The Pakistan Offshore Petroleum Rules 2023

The Pakistan Offshore Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Rules, 2023 now provide the specialised upstream regulatory framework for offshore petroleum operations.

The Rules apply to offshore areas and regulate petroleum rights there. They contemplate offshore production-sharing arrangements involving the President of Pakistan, Government Holdings (Private) Limited (“GHPL”) and the contractor concerned.

An interesting transitional feature is that the Offshore Rules were notified in February 2023 under both section 2 of the 1948 Act and the then-existing Territorial Waters and Maritime Zones Act, 1976. When Parliament subsequently enacted the Pakistan Maritime Zones Act 2023 and repealed the 1976 legislation, section 34 preserved rules made and actions taken under the repealed Act. The Offshore Rules therefore form part of the continuing contemporary offshore framework.

The petroleum-right holder’s authority should consequently be understood as a public-law and contractual entitlement created within this statutory framework, rather than an independent proprietary claim to the seabed or petroleum deposit.

Pakistan’s Maritime Boundaries: A Necessary Correction

It is inaccurate to state that Pakistan’s maritime limits with neighbouring States are substantially settled or that the outstanding questions concern little more than fisheries.

Pakistan and Oman have a formally delimited maritime boundary under the Muscat Agreement on the Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Sultanate of Oman, signed on 12 June 2000 and in force from 21 November 2000. The United Nations treaty records identify that agreement as Pakistan’s registered maritime delimitation arrangement with Oman.

The India-Pakistan position is materially different.

The Sir Creek dispute remains unresolved, and its significance extends beyond the arrest of fishermen. The location of the land terminus affects the projection of the maritime boundary into the Arabian Sea. A 2026 report of Pakistan’s National Commission for Human Rights, referring to Pakistan’s Note Verbale No. 003/2025 submitted to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, records Pakistan’s position that the land terminus in the Sir Creek region remains unresolved and that no mutually accepted boundary point exists.

Any offshore petroleum analysis in an area potentially affected by an unresolved international delimitation question must therefore take that issue seriously. Domestic grant of a petroleum concession cannot, by itself, conclusively determine an international maritime boundary.

What Article 172(3) Does—and Does Not—Mean

Article 172(3) deserves particular care because loose references to “50:50 ownership” can themselves become misleading.

It unquestionably creates joint and equal constitutional vesting of mineral oil and natural gas situated within a Province or its adjacent territorial waters between the Province and Federation.

But that does not necessarily mean that every payment, royalty, tax, regulatory decision, working interest or barrel of production must mechanically be divided 50:50.

The Constitution separately regulates particular economic entitlements. Article 161, for example, directs specified excise proceeds and natural-gas royalties to the producing Province. Article 158 confers the producing Province’s priority in meeting natural-gas requirements. Petroleum concession agreements, applicable rules, government participation mechanisms, royalty provisions and fiscal legislation operate within their own legal spheres.

Article 172(3) is therefore a constitutional proposition about ownership and federalism, not a complete petroleum fiscal code.

Its deeper significance is political as well as proprietary. It reflects the constitutional recognition that natural resources situated in Pakistan’s constituent Provinces cannot properly be treated as though their relationship with the producing Province were juridically irrelevant. At the same time, petroleum is an inherently national strategic resource, connected with energy security, foreign investment, inter-provincial supply, national infrastructure, foreign exchange and international obligations.

The Constitution attempts to reconcile those competing imperatives through shared ownership rather than through absolute provincialisation or absolute federalisation.

The Modern Legal Position in Summary

The historical development can therefore be stated more accurately as follows.

Before Partition, the Government of India Act 1935 divided legislative competence concerning mines and oilfields between the Federation and Provinces. In the absence of a federal declaration assuming control, regulation of oilfield development generally remained provincial. That constitutional allocation, however, should not be equated with a universal rule of provincial proprietary ownership.

Following Pakistan’s creation, the 1948 Act established central regulatory control over petroleum concessions and provided the statutory foundation for petroleum licensing.

The 1956 Constitution expressly made mineral oil and natural gas a federal legislative subject, while its maritime provisions placed relevant offshore minerals under federal ownership.

The Minerals (Acquisition and Transfer) Order, 1961 then expressly acquired and vested minerals—including natural deposits of fuel, oil and gas—in the Central Government.

The 1962 constitutional regime continued that strongly centralised approach.

The Constitution of 1973 maintained federal legislative competence over mineral oil and natural gas while recognising provincial interests through provisions including Articles 158 and 161.

The Eighteenth Amendment of 2010 fundamentally changed the proprietary position by inserting Article 172(3). Petroleum and natural gas within a Province or its adjacent territorial waters are now jointly and equally vested in that Province and the Federation. Resources within the continental shelf or underlying the ocean beyond territorial waters remain federally vested under Article 172(2).

The current regulatory regime nevertheless remains substantially structured through federal legislation, the 1948 Act, the Pakistan Onshore Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Rules 2013, the Pakistan Offshore Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Rules 2023, petroleum concession and production-sharing arrangements, and the constitutional role of the Council of Common Interests.

Finally, the maritime component must now be examined under the Pakistan Maritime Zones Act 2023, rather than the repealed Territorial Waters and Maritime Zones Act 1976.

Why This Distinction Matters for Investors, Landowners and Petroleum Companies

For an exploration and production company, the identity of the constitutional owner is only the beginning of the legal inquiry.

A competent petroleum due-diligence exercise must identify the geographical location of the resource; determine whether Article 172(2) or Article 172(3) applies; examine the applicable concession, exploration licence, production lease or production-sharing agreement; ascertain the role of the Federal and Provincial Governments and the CCI; verify surface and access rights; consider royalty, taxation and Article 161 entitlements; investigate environmental and regulatory approvals; and, in offshore areas, examine Pakistan’s maritime legislation and any relevant international delimitation issues.

For a private landowner, equally, ownership of land does not ordinarily translate into ownership of the oil or natural gas beneath it. The landowner’s legal interests instead concern the lawfulness of entry, occupation, acquisition or use of the surface estate and the payment of compensation, rent or other sums provided by law.

For governments, Article 172(3) creates something more profound than an accounting formula. It imposes a constitutional conception of shared stewardship over a finite national resource. Neither level of government can sensibly treat the petroleum estate as though the constitutional interests of the other simply did not exist.

Conclusion

Pakistan’s petroleum ownership regime is not a straightforward story of petroleum passing from provincial ownership before Partition to permanent federal ownership after independence.

The more accurate constitutional history is one of changing allocations of regulatory competence, followed by express federal vesting, and ultimately by constitutional co-ownership.

The Government of India Act 1935 principally divided legislative power. Pakistan’s 1948 legislation established central regulatory control. President’s Order No. 8 of 1961 expressly transferred and vested mineral rights in the Central Government. The 1956, 1962 and early 1973 constitutional arrangements reflected a predominantly federal petroleum regime.

The Eighteenth Amendment then altered that settlement.

Today, the Constitution itself provides that mineral oil and natural gas within a Province or its adjacent territorial waters are jointly and equally vested in the Province and the Federal Government, while valuable resources beyond territorial waters within the constitutional offshore sphere remain federally vested.

That constitutional ownership arrangement operates alongside federal legislative competence over mineral oil and natural gas, the supervisory and policy responsibilities of the Council of Common Interests, provincial priorities and fiscal entitlements under Articles 158 and 161, and a detailed modern concessionary system for onshore and offshore petroleum operations.

The result is not a wholly federal system, nor a wholly provincial one. It is a deliberately federalist legal architecture in which ownership, regulation, revenue and physical access have been allocated through different constitutional and statutory mechanisms.

Understanding those distinctions is indispensable for petroleum concessions, exploration and production agreements, land-access disputes, provincial resource claims, offshore projects, foreign investment and any serious legal assessment of Pakistan’s upstream oil and gas sector.

This article reflects the legal position reviewed as at August 2026 and is intended as a general analysis of Pakistan’s petroleum ownership and constitutional framework. Particular petroleum concessions, legacy agreements, provincial claims, land rights and offshore projects require examination of their individual statutory, contractual and geographical circumstances.