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The three oil marketing companies — Indian Oil (IOC), Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum — announced a Rs 3.13-a-litre increase in the retail price of petrol and Rs 2.71-a-litre rise in diesel prices with effect from Friday midnight to align the de-regulated domestic prices with the international rates.
After the changes in retail prices, non-branded petrol will be charged at Rs 66.29 a litre in Delhi, while diesel will cost Rs 52.28 a litre. The prices were last revised on May 1, when petrol prices were increased by Rs 3.96 a litre and diesel prices were hiked by Rs 2.37 a litre.
“Since the last price change, there has been a sharp increase in international prices of both petrol and diesel. The rupee-dollar exchange rate has also depreciated quite significantly during this period. The combined impact of both these factors warrants an upward revision in prices, the impact of which is being passed on to consumers,” said IOC, India’s largest fuel retailer, in a statement.
IOC added that the movement of prices in the international oil market and the rupee-dollar exchange rate would continue to be closely monitored and developing trends of the market reflected in future price changes.
While petrol prices was de-controlled in 2010, diesel prices were linked to the market in October 2014. The global crude oil prices had slumped by about a half from their June 2014 peak of $114 a barrel to $49 a barrel in January. Prices have risen to $66 a barrel since then.
