A day after the Presidential election ended, oil marketing companies have decided to increase petrol prices by Rs 0.70 per litre. The move comes after successive cuts last month. The new price in the capital effective midnight today will be Rs 68.48 per litre, since there will be no impact of taxes on the increase. After adding state taxes, the rise will be Rs 0.87 per litre in Kolkata and Rs 0.88 per litre in Mumbai, respectively.
The said revision has been necessitated due to increasing international oil prices and movement in the rupee-dollar exchange rate, said an Indian Oil statement. The average price of Indian basket of crude for the relevant pricing period considered is $101.28/barrel while International petrol price is $111.59/barrel. The exchange rate is around Rs 55.36/dollar. At these levels, Indian Oil is incurring losses of about Rs 1.41/litre on petrol sales in the domestic market. However, as the price movement is quite volatile, it has been decided that a further view would be taken at an appropriate time.
This is the second price increase in petrol in this financial and calendar year. The last increase of Rs 7.54 per litre (including taxes) was done on May 24. However, prices were cut by cut twice (Rs 2.02 on June 3 and Rs 2.46 on June 29) in the month of June following softening in global prices.
