A day after a price hike, oil marketing companies (OMCs) on Saturday kept pump price of petrol and diesel unchanged across the country, taking a pause with global oil which is showing signs of softening amidst possibility of Iranian oil hitting the markets soon.
With global crude prices at around $66 a barrel mark (lower than $70 it touched last week), OMCs may keep a watch and spare consumers from any further increase in fuel prices for some time now.
Accordingly, petrol continues to be priced at Friday's level of Rs 93.04 per litre and diesel Rs 83.80 per litre in Delhi. In Mumbai, the price of petrol and diesel stood at Rs 99.32 and Rs 91.01 per litre respectively.
The price of petrol and diesel in Chennai was Rs 94.71 and Rs 88.62 per litre respectively and Rs 93.11 and Rs 86.64 per litre in Kolkata.
Across the country as well the fuel prices remained static on Saturday but their retail prices varied depending on the level of local taxes.
The pause in prices has come after the repeated rise in fuel prices in May which has taken the retail price of petrol closer to historic level of Rs 100 per litre in the city of Mumbai. The retail price of petrol has now reached Rs 99.32 per litre in the city.
Petrol prices are already over Rs 100 per litre in several cities in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Premium petrol has been hovering above that level for some time now.
The hike on petrol and diesel prices on Friday by state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) on Friday. was the 11th this month that pushed petrol and diesel prices to all-time high levels across the country. This has taken up the price of petrol by Rs 2.49 a litre in Delhi. Similarly, diesel prices have risen by Rs 3.07 per litre in the capital this month.
The state-run oil marketing companies including Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum, and Hindustan Petroleum align the rates of domestic fuel based on average price of benchmark fuel in the international market in the preceding 15-days, and foreign exchange rates.
Before Friday, OMC were revising fuel prices on every alternate day for last one week rather than undertaking changes on a daily basis as has been the practice.
(With IANS inputs)
