New Delhi: After two rounds of rate cuts last month, petrol price was today hiked by 70 paise per litre on firming international oil rates.
Petrol in Delhi will cost Rs 68.48 per litre with effect from midnight tonight as compared to Rs 67.78 a litre now, state-owned oil companies announced on Monday.
The marginal hike in rate follows reductions last month — Rs 2.02 per litre on June 3 and Rs 2.46 a litre on June 29. The twin price cuts followed the massive Rs 7.54 per litre increase in rates, the biggest in the history, effected in May.
Monday’s increase was ‘necessitated due to increasing international oil prices and movement in INR-USD exchange rate,’ Indian Oil Corp, the nation’s largest fuel retailer, said in a statement.
Average price of Indian basket of crude is USD 101.28 per barrel while international petrol price is USD 111.59 a barrel. The Rupee-USD exchange rate is around Rs 55.36 to a dollar.
“At these levels, the oil companies are incurring losses of about Rs 1.41 per litre on petrol sales in the domestic market. However, as the price movement is quite volatile, it has been decided that an increase of Rs 0.70 per litre ..,” it said. (PTI)
