Fact check: Pakistan does not import oil from Iran

Last time Pakistan imported diesel was a meager quantity of 1,000 tonnes in 2009

A text image shared in multiple Facebook and Twitter posts claim that Iran has suspended oil supplies to Pakistan as a result of billions of dollars worth of outstanding payments. The claim is false; Pakistan does not import oil from Iran, according to the country’s state oil company.

The post, which has been shared more than seven hundred times, was published here on Facebook on August 18, 2019.

Below is a screenshot of the post:



The Hindi language text reads: “Iran suspended diesel and petrol supplies to Pakistan. They will only resume the supply once Pakistan pays off approximately 21 billion dollars of the outstanding amount. And these beggars eager for Kashmir.”

The post has been shared elsewhere on Facebook here and here, as well on Twitter here.

Pakistan State Oil Company Limited communications executive Naila Erum told AFP in an August 20 email: “Pakistan has no petroleum imports from Iran.”

“The last time Diesel was imported by Pakistan was a meager quantity of 1,000 tonnes in 2009,” Shankar Laterja, an oil analyst at Pakistan’s Topline Securities, told AFP on phone.

An article published here by Iran’s Mehr news agency on May 2, 2019, reports that “Iran does not export its oil and gas to Pakistan.”

Information services firm CEIC Data, which tracks economic data from around the world, has documented Iranian crude oil exports from 1980 to 2018 on its website here. Pakistan is not among the listed countries.