In a press conference in Islamabad, Dr Malik said the country has 20-day stocks of petrol and diesel available.
The minister insisted that Pakistan had sufficient fuel supplies and warned of dire consequences if petrol pumps continued to create panic among consumers.
Malik said the price of oil will be fixed at its fixed time. Some believe that the prices of petroleum products will increase, however there is no plan to increase the prices, he claimed.
Earlier in the day, a number of petrol pumps in major and small cities of Punjab faced a severe ‘shortage’ of fuel and were reportedly shut down.
The situation was particularly troublesome in major cities, including Lahore, Gujranwala and Faisalabad, where several pumps either had no or a meager supply of petrol for the last many days, allegedly due to limited supply from oil marketing companies.
The PML-N minister warned hoarders against the practice, and told them to consider this a warning.
He said hoarders won’t be allowed to rob people of their rights.