PETROL PRICES Hiked by 70 paise

India’s oil marketing companies Monday announced a hike in petrol prices by 70 paise a litre, with effect from midnight, citing increasing international oil prices and decline in the rupee’s value. MS (motor spirit) prices were decontrolled by the GOI about two years back, which freed the Oil Marketing giants to fix the selling price of petrol according to them. Speaking about the same, Indian Oil Corporation said “It has been decided by Indian Oil Corporation to increase MS (motor spirit) prices by Rs.0.70 per litre (excluding state levies) with effect from midnight of July 23,”

Speaking about the reasons behind the hike, it further added, “The said revision has been necessitated due to increasing international oil prices and movement in INR-USD exchange rate,” The average price of Indian basket of crude for the relevant pricing period considered is $101.28/bbl while International MS price is $111.59/bbl. The Rupee-USD exchange rate as of now is around Rs 55.36/USD. And as per the company IOC is bearing the loss of about Rs 1.41/litre on MS sales in India.

IOC then said, However, as the price movement is quite volatile, it has been decided that an increase of Rs.0.70 per litre may be effected at this juncture and the situation watched for some time depending upon which a further view will be taken at an appropriate time. In addition, the company said that the HSD (high speed diesel), Kerosene and LPG prices have not been changed since June 2011, which has resulted the under recovery of Rs 10.01 per/litre on diesel, Rs 27.20 per/litre on kerosene and around Rs 319 per/cylinder on cooking gas.

The hike in petrol price will vary from 70 paise to 91 paise per litre as per the taxes charged by different states.

Existing and Revised selling prices for metros are given below :