Indian basket at $81

The Indian basket of crude oil touched a new high of $81.06 per barrel on Tuesday, the latest day for which data is available. This is the first time that the price has crossed the $80 mark.

So far in October, the crude oil basket, which comprises Oman-Dubai sour (high sulphur) grade crude oil and Brent dated sweet (low sulphur) crude oil in 59.8:40.2 ratio, has averaged $76.54 a barrel compared with $74.83 in September and $69.03 in August.

With retail price of auto fuels de-linked from international crude price movements, customers would be spared a hike while the subsidy burden would go up for the three parties sharing the subsidy burden "� oil marketing companies (Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum), oil exploration companies and the government. Global oil prices, however, dipped marginally to $87.30 a barrel on Wednesday.

"The marginal dip is primarily because traders are booking profits," a Mumbai-based analyst said.