Nato supplies from Karachi: An international fight throws a spanner in the works for the oil tanker business

A permanent blockade on supplies to Afghanistan worries drivers .

KARACHI: With no fuel supplies to deliver to Afghanistan, there is little for oil tanker drivers in Shireen Jinnah Colony to do but spend their afternoons heating up hashish for a joint.

“We have been sitting idle for a month as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) supply routes have been closed by the government,” said Abdul Khaliq. “We are totally dependent on these tankers and are waiting for a decision on whether the supply will be restored.”

The 36-year-old Khaliq’s family depends on his work but the government’s decision to close off Nato supply routes in Pakistan means he has no money for food, or to send to his family in Dera Ismail Khan.

Even though Khaliq knew that ferrying supplies to Afghanistan was difficult work, he had to undertake it because of debt. Before he began driving tankers, he had worked as a photographer, and then he went on to sell everything from cattle to tea. When none of these options turned a profit, he started working with his uncle as a helper for an oil tanker destined for Afghanistan.

While Khaliq faced cold weather, mosquitoes and the risky route from Karachi to Kandahar, the monthly income of Rs30,000 per month made the work worth it. “Only God knows how we cross the roads, sitting inside tankers in the freezing cold weather of Quetta, while facing the rude and inhuman behaviour of the police and people who we encounter on the way. But we are doing this out of extreme necessity,” he said. Now that the routes have been closed, most drivers sleep in their tankers parked at Shireen Jinnah Colony, play cards during the day and wait for news that the routes have been opened.

Khaliq is not the only driver dependent on the Nato supply chain. More than 10,000 families are directly linked to the 30,000 oil tankers which supply fuel to Nato.

Asad, 33, who is the owner of two oil tankers, said he does not know what he will do next. “I work with LLL Transporters, because the contractors at Nato give money in advance and do not ask for a No-Objection Certificate (NoC), unlike [a state-owned oil distributor] who asks for Rs2,500,000 as an NoC,” he said. According to Asad, contractors pay Rs420,000 for a trip to Kandahar. This comprises Rs90,000 for the contractor’s commission (which include insurance of the vehicle and tracking charges), Rs210,000 for fuel and ‘payments’ to law-enforcement officials and Rs30,000 for the driver and helper. This leaves the owner with nearly Rs100,000 in profit for every trip made to Kandahar.

The government has also stopped issuing new permits to oil tankers, and dozens of them carrying supplies now have nowhere to offload their load. “We get a 15-day permit from the oil-supplying companies and we have to cross the Chaman broader within that time. Dozens of oil tankers are just parked en route as their permits have expired,” he said.

Al Haj, Mengal, Speenzar, Bilal, LLL and other small companies are the main contractors who have engaged more than 3,000 oil tankers for the Nato supply.

If the blockade is permanent, the owners of the oil tankers will have to modify their vehicles. According to Asad, the oil tankers that supply Nato have a capacity for 600,000 litres, and their powerful engines consume a lot of fuel. Modifying each tanker to Pakistan State Oil’s need, for example, would cost around Rs2,000,000.

As the tanker drivers find new ways to occupy their days, Asad made a dire prediction. “A permanent blockade of the Nato supply route will destroy the entire transport business in Pakistan, as it is difficult to accommodate all these tankers in the Pakistan supply chain.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2011.