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ISLAMABAD: A long-dormant oil and gas block in northwestern Pakistan is set to be revived through a new joint venture between US company Hycarbex-American Energy and Pakistani partners Mari Energies and Fatima Petroleum, the petroleum ministry said on Wednesday.

The Peshawar Block, located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has remained inactive for years due to regulatory delays, security challenges and a lack of financing. Its revival is expected to help Pakistan reduce dependence on costly fuel imports, ease persistent gas shortages and unlock untapped hydrocarbon reserves critical to sustaining industrial growth and household supply.

The revival of the block also marks one of the most significant US participations in Pakistan’s upstream energy sector in recent years and is seen as a potential catalyst for wider American investment in the country’s oil, gas and minerals industries.

Federal Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik announced the joint venture after meeting Hycarbex CEO Pierce Onthank and Mari Energies CEO Faheem Haider in Islamabad on Wednesday. 

“The commitment shown by these companies to unlock the potential of this block is commendable. It is crucial for our goal of indigenization and sustainability of fuel supplies, and we assure full support in facilitating its advancement,” Malik was quoted as saying in a statement by the petroleum ministry. 

Hycarbex CEO Onthank said the company was already working on three other exploration blocks in the country, the petroleum ministry statement said. 

“The energy opportunity in Pakistan is incredible,” he said. 

“Our company is committed to this market, and alongside our work on the Peshawar Block JV, Hycarbex-American Energy is also working on three other blocks in the country. We have done substantial investment in Pakistan. We are confident that this collaboration will yield significant results for Pakistan’s energy landscape.”

The project also aligns with the Pakistani government’s ongoing overhaul of the Directorate General of Petroleum Concessions (DGPC) to create a more efficient and investment-friendly regulatory framework aimed at attracting long-term foreign capital.

The JV comes amid a broader effort by Pakistan and the United States to deepen economic engagement, particularly in energy, minerals, trade and technology. 

Relations between the two countries have warmed under US President Donald Trump, who met Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, the country’s army chief, at the White House last week in wide-ranging discussions on security as well as trade and investment.

Washington and Islamabad have also launched talks to encourage US private-sector participation in Pakistan’s economy and its energy transition.

PESHAWAR: Afghan traders in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar say their businesses and family ties have been thrown into disarray after Taliban authorities imposed a sweeping Internet blackout across their homeland earlier this week.

Internet connectivity in Afghanistan has dropped to less than one percent of normal levels, according to watchdog NetBlocks, after Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada ordered the shutdown “until further notice” to combat what officials called “vice.”

The outage has worsened conditions in one of the world’s poorest and most war-torn countries, already reeling from decades of conflict, humanitarian crises and a recent earthquake, rights groups said.

“We have big businesses with hotels [in Afghanistan],” Hajji Khan Muhammad, a kitchenware trader at Peshawar’s Board Bazaar near the Afghan border, said. “But our customers, they don’t buy [our products] until we send them pictures.”

He noted that these days businesses are mainly conducted online, with the whole world relying on the Internet.

Other Afghan traders said the blackout had left them unable to recover their payments or speak to their families.

“We can’t talk to our customers,” said Aslam, another Afghan trader who only shared his first name. “We can’t communicate with each other or build relations.”

Abdullah Jan, another Afghan national in the market, said the disruption had cut off vital family contact.

“Everyone is upset,” he continued. “We have relatives, some are someone’s brothers, uncles, some are someone’s mothers, sisters. We were in contact with each other. Now that the Internet is down, communication is also dead.”

Others warned the outage was straining cross-border commerce.

“We are businessmen and we have trades and businesses set up there. They ask us for the items and owe us money. We don’t have visas to go and get our money back from them,” said Javed Khan.

The United Nations has warned of a “very dire situation” with “serious human rights ramifications.”

Aid agencies say the blackout will prevent Afghan women from accessing online education programs, cut remittances and censor media.

At the beginning of 2025, around 13.2 million Afghans – roughly 30 percent of the population – had Internet access, according to the specialist website DataReportal, with more than four million social media users.

Kabul had previously touted its 9,350-kilometer fiber optic network as a way to lift the country out of poverty.