LPG strike from 16 November: marketers say new pricing formula could raise cylinder prices 25 to 30%

LPG associations have announced a nationwide strike from 16 November 2026 unless the government drops its new LPG pricing formula within 15 days, the chairman of the LPG Marketers Association, Ali Haider, said in Karachi on Saturday, ARY News reported. He said the formula could push LPG prices up by 25 to 30 per cent.

The announcement came after an emergency meeting in which every association present rejected the formula. It lands a day after the Prime Minister put the wider LPG deregulation plan on hold and gave an eight-member committee a month to review it.

What the dispute is about

According to Ali Haider:

• Sea-import price for everyone: officials have decided to price all LPG in the country at the rate of cargoes imported by sea, he said.
• Local LPG would cost more: domestically produced LPG, about 30% of supply, would become much more expensive under that rule.
• Bowsers: about 90% of LPG in Pakistan moves by road in bowsers, which the associations say the formula does not account for.

The government has not yet responded publicly to the strike call.

What a 25 to 30% rise would mean

OGRA's notified price for October was Rs 3,296 for an 11.8 kg domestic cylinder. If the associations' estimate held, the same cylinder would cost roughly Rs 4,120 to Rs 4,285, an increase of about Rs 820 to Rs 990. These are the marketers' projections, not a notified price: OGRA announces the official price at the start of each month, and the November figure is due on 1 November.

In practice, shop prices in many cities have run above the notified rate for weeks, as our LPG price reports this month showed.

If you rely on LPG

• Households in gas-short areas of Karachi, interior Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan rely most on cylinders in winter. A strike from 16 November would hit just as heating demand rises.
• Do not hoard or buy from unlicensed refillers. Decanting from bowsers into small cylinders in shops is dangerous and illegal.
• Check the notified price before paying, and compare it with your monthly gas bill using the gas bill calculator if you have a pipeline connection as well.

Background: LPG policy on hold as the PM forms a committee to review it.