New Delhi/ Bhopal: Amid pressure to check the fuel price rise, oil marketing companies on Monday decided to keep petrol and diesel prices unchanged on Monday for the second consecutive day. Accordingly, petrol continues to be priced at Rs 90.58 a litre and diesel Rs 80.97 a litre in the national capital.
Across the country as well the petrol and diesel price remained stable after rising for 12 consecutive days till Saturday. During this phase of price rise (in the last 12 days since February 9), the price has gone up by Rs 3.63 per litre for petrol while diesel rate has risen by Rs 3.84 a litre in Delhi.
The increase in the previous weeks has taken petrol to cross historic high levels of Rs 100 a litre in several cities across the country. In Mumbai, petrol price is just Rs 3 per litre short (Rs 97 a litre) of touching the three digit mark of Rs 100 per litre for the very first time ever. Diesel price in the city is closing on Rs 90 a litre (Rs 88.06 a litre).
In all other metros, petrol is over Rs 90 a litre mark while diesel is well over Rs 80 a litre. Premium petrol has crossed Rs 100 per litre mark in several cities of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra a few days back. The steady fuel price has followed the softening of global oil prices (both product and crude) in the last few days.
After crossing $ 65 a barrel mark in earlier week, it is around $ 63 a barrel now. Since fuel prices are benchmarked to a 15-day rolling average of global refined products' prices and dollar exchange rate, pump prices can be expected to remain northbound over the next few days even if crude hovers at the current level or falls. The petrol and diesel prices have increased 24 times in 2021 with the two auto fuels increasing by Rs 6.87 and Rs 7.10 per litre respectively so far this year.
Oil companies executives said that petrol and diesel prices may increase further in coming days as retail prices may have to be balanced in line with global developments to prevent OMCs from making losses on sale of auto fuels.
