Who is Buying the Recurrent Reserve Rhetoric?

Lakshmi Gayathry

In the great game of world politics over energy, discourse frequently comes before discovery. The recent global media coverage of the so-called oil and gas deposits in Pakistan is a case in point of how geological uncertainty is shaped by geopolitical needs. Islamabad, Washington, and the rest are not simply disputing the quantities and timescales; they are using different linguistic regimes which reduce hydrocarbons as a symbol of sovereignty, leverage or caution. The oil story of Pakistan should be analysed more as a discursive formation, how language in speeches, media, and social interactions constructs political realities, shapes power, influences public opinion and builds identities, rather than a geological understanding itself.

The Pakistani state has increasingly made hydrocarbons a tool of national recovery in its story. The recent language of policy has placed oil and gas discoveries not as particular technical phenomena, but as phases in a larger project of economic emancipation, a core part of the formation of Pakistan. This construct is most notable in the government’s adoption of the blue water economy, which promotes offshore exploration not as a niche industry but as a nationalist future of fate.

Institutionalised messages, like the Nashpa block output declaration by Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), use a language of urgency and mobilisation. The orders of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the need to carry out an accelerated seismic survey and increased drilling campaigns sound like a wartime declaration, with energy production as the response to an existential menace, even as the oil import bill amounts to 12-15 billion annually, eating up foreign exchange reserves. Statistical revisions, including the mention of an increase in proven reserves to about 238 million barrels, are rhetorically packaged not as incremental benefits but as a demonstration of the turnaround in the process, changing depletion into recovery.

But this discussion always leaves out the question of probability. The so-called 40 per cent “success rate” is mentioned in official contexts as a sign of investor confidence (i.e., block awards), not as a reminder that 6 out of 10 exploratory wells in the past have not tapped commercial hydrocarbons. Language rebranding failure as a delay of progress turns dry wells into learning curves along an extended transition to energy security, however, with increasing discoveries in gas remaining.

The abstraction is more consequential in Baluchistan, where resource discourses are merged with separatist politics. The use of official language considers insurgency, in a technocratic way of thinking – improved security measures and mitigation of risks – thus, the long-held anger that deals with ownership of resources is depoliticised.

The language of Islamabad hasn’t been as aspirational as the expansive and performative language of Washington, especially under President Donald Trump’s administration. The frequent mentions made by Trump about the oil reserves in Pakistan as massive are a blatant break on the traditionally more cautious and probabilistic diction of U.S. energy institutions. Based vaguely on the older estimates of the U.S. Energy Information Administration of shale, his rhetoric erases the difference between technical recoverability and commercial viability, making the tentative numbers become political truths.

In the U.S. discourse, the concept of energy cooperation is perceived as a reward and leverage through the use of social media statements and trade conversations. Terms such as partnership, lifeline, and deal incorporate hydrocarbons into a logic of transaction diplomacy, in which the patron-client relationships of the Cold War alignments of yore are recreated. The speculative idea that one day Pakistan will sell oil to India can be seen as an example of how speculative energy surpluses are rhetorically armed to disrupt regional hierarchies, regardless of production facts.

It is notable that there are no official records of the U.S. which are non-committal, there are no audits of the reserves, schedules or commitments of investment with the grand language. The strategic role of rhetoric itself is exposed by this gap. Enhancing scale without seeking verification, Washington makes the U.S. capital and technology indispensable determinants of Pakistan’s energy future, implicitly projecting American influence across basins in Iran and Afghanistan, where geology and geopolitics are closely intertwined.

Then there is the economy of wording amid these vast accounts by researchers, geologists, and credit-rating analysts. They do not speak of transformation but are very precise. Words like proven, technically recoverable, probabilistic, and incremental are the ruling terms in evaluations by PACRA, USGS, and others.

The proven oil reserves, according to empirical evidence, are estimated to be between 234 and 353 million barrels, placing the country at position 50 across the world. Domestic production accounts for about 60,000-88,000 barrels per day, which is less than 15 per cent of the national demand. The much more commonly quoted 9.1 billion-barrel shale number is expressly put in terms of technical potential, and recovery rates are pegged at 3-7 per cent, assuming abatable prices and infrastructure.

Importantly, studies anticipate limitations that political discourse obscures: per-well prices are high (between 10 and 15 million dollars), seismic coverage is not complete, claimed fields are inaccessible, and it is unlikely they will be found in frontier basins. Security concerns in Baluchistan and along the borders of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are not treated as externalities but are considered main variables in assessing the project’s viability and investment appetite. The academic lexicon demands decades, not presidential terms of office.

These accounts overlap in terms of partnership and potential, but differ widely in terms of time, risk, and agency. The first two are frequently exaggerated in media coverage, and the third is selectively chosen, which only contributes to the confusion between promise and proof.

* Lakshmi Gayathry is an intern at the Politeia Research Foundation and is currently pursuing their Masters in Public Policy from Kautilya School of Public Policy

End Notes

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