Crude touches 11-month high

The price of the basket of crude oil that Indian refiners buy has touched a fresh 11-month high of $73.22 a barrel. The government, however, is still non-committal on raising prices of petrol and diesel.

"We have not yet thought about it (hiking prices of petrol and diesel)," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said.

The price of the basket, which comprises Oman-Dubai sour grade crude oil and Brent dated sweet crude oil in a 58:42 ratio, rose 10.48 per cent to $73.22 a barrel on July 11, from $66.27 a barrel on June 11. It had touched an all-time high of $75.20 a barrel on August 8, 2006.

The price of Brent crude oil hovered around $76 a barrel on geo-political tensions in Nigeria and comments of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries indicating that the cartel was not looking at raising output.

The Indian basket has averaged $71.73 a barrel in July so far, compared with $68.19 in June and $65.74 in May. In the financial year ended March, the basket price had averaged $62.46, compared with $55.72 the previous year.

The oil-marketing companies "" Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum "" are together losing around Rs 170 crore per day as they sell petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene at government-controlled prices.

Indian Oil, the country's largest marketer of petroleum products, is losing Rs 4.95 per litre of petrol and Rs 4.45 per litre of diesel.