diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/default.nix
index 58326a6fa503..13bf512b32d6 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/default.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ stdenv, fetchurl, gfortran, openblas }:
+{ stdenv, lib, copyPathsToStore, fetchurl, gfortran, openblas }:
 
 with stdenv.lib;
 
@@ -7,11 +7,17 @@ let
 in
 stdenv.mkDerivation {
   name = "arpack-${version}";
+
   src = fetchurl {
     url = "https://github.com/opencollab/arpack-ng/archive/${version}.tar.gz";
     sha256 = "1fwch6vipms1ispzg2djvbzv5wag36f1dmmr3xs3mbp6imfyhvff";
   };
 
+  patches = copyPathsToStore (lib.readPathsFromFile ./. ./series);
+  postPatch = ''
+    substituteInPlace arpack.pc.in --replace "@openblas@" "${openblas}/lib"
+  '';
+
   buildInputs = [ gfortran openblas ];
 
   # Auto-detection fails because gfortran brings in BLAS by default
diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/openblas-libdir.patch b/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/openblas-libdir.patch
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..421f8e85f5fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/openblas-libdir.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+Index: arpack-ng-3.2.0/arpack.pc.in
+===================================================================
+--- arpack-ng-3.2.0.orig/arpack.pc.in
++++ arpack-ng-3.2.0/arpack.pc.in
+@@ -5,5 +5,5 @@ libdir=@libdir@
+ Name: arpack
+ Description: ARPACK-NG 
+ Version: @PACKAGE_VERSION@
+-Libs: -L${libdir} -larpack @BLAS_LIBS@ @LAPACK_LIBS@
++Libs: -L@openblas@ -L${libdir} -larpack @BLAS_LIBS@ @LAPACK_LIBS@
+ Cflags: 
diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/series b/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/series
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..6ac0b3286ef4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/science/math/arpack/series
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+openblas-libdir.patch