This paper looks at the concept of extraction of raw materials, labour and communities, as it applies to the Balochistan province of Pakistan, with an emphasis on the port city of Gwadar. Extraction and its spatial consequences are explored with reference to the situation on the ground in Gwadar. Looking at Gwadar through the lense of statecraft finds it to be a zone/ free zone, but it is also simultaneously an extractive zone. This has spatial and demographic consequences, one of which is the imposition of consecutive master plans which aim to establish this zone. It is found that these plans have a recurrently deferred nature that leaves gaps between the planned infrastructure, the realised infrastructure and the already existing locality. These liminal gaps, of a temporal nature, can be places of opportunity to address the spatial and demographic consequences.