State-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) increased prices of petrol and diesel for fifth day in a row across all metros on Tuesday. Petrol price was raised 6 paise per litre and diesel by 16 paise.
According to IOCL website, petrol price in Delhi was hiked to Rs 81.59 a litre from Rs 81.53 a litre while diesel prices rose to Rs 71.41 a litre from Rs 71.25 a litre. After today’s rate revision, petrol price in Dimapur rose to Rs. 84.38 per litre while diesel price increased to Rs. 74.99 per litre. In Kohima, a litre of petrol and diesel was retailing at Rs.85.22 per litre and Rs.75.68 per litre respectively.
State-owned OMCs started raising fuel prices from November 20. In five days, petrol price has gone up by 53 paise and diesel rates have risen by 95 paise per litre.
Petrol prices had been static since September 22, and diesel rates hadn’t changed since October 2.
Though retail pricing of petrol and diesel has been deregulated and oil marketing companies were following a daily price revision formula, the same was suspendended for almost two months to prevent volatility in international oil markets from impacting fuel prices regularly during the pandemic.
But crude on the boil again on news of a successful coronavirus vaccine launch soon, the OMCs lost patience and finally resorted to price increase to cover their under recovery.
The benchmark Brent crude has crossed $45 a barrel on Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). It crossed $43 a barrel for most part of November.
The OMCs need almost 40 paise per litre increase in retail price of petrol and diesel to cover for $1 increase in crude. Going by this yardstick, product prices would have to be increased by upto Rs 2 per litre to cover under recovery on its sale.