Fuel prices remain unchanged even as global oil rates firm up

After big cuts in petrol and diesel prices following centre and states reducing taxes, fuel prices have remained unchanged providing further relief to consumers.

Accordingly, petrol and diesel prices continued to be stable for the sixth consecutive day on Wednesday under the daily price revision mechanism followed by oil marketing companies.

The pump price of petrol in Delhi, which fell to Rs 103.97 a litre at 6 am on Tuesday from previous day's Rs 110.04 a litre, remains the same. The diesel prices also remained unchanged in the capital at Rs 86.67 a litre.

In the financial capital Mumbai, petrol continues to be priced at Rs 109.98 a litre, while diesel is being sold at Rs 94.14 a litre.

Rates also remained static in Kolkata where the price of petrol came down by Rs 5.82 to Rs 104.67 per litre and that of diesel by Rs 11.77 to Rs 89.79 per litre last week.

Petrol prices in Chennai also remain at Rs 101.40 per litre and diesel Rs 91 .43 per litre.

Also read: Fuel sellers on Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border look to cash in on price gap between states

The fuel prices across the country largely remained unchanged but the retail rates varied depending on the level of local taxes.

After softening, the global crude prices have again touched a three-year high level of over $85 a barrel now. OPEC+ decision on only gradual increase in production in December could push up crude prices further. This could put pressure on oil companies to revise fuel prices upwards again.

Before price cuts and pause, diesel prices had increased on 30 out of the last 47 days taking up its retail price by Rs 9.90 per litre in Delhi.

Petrol prices had also risen on 28 of the previous 43 days taking up its pump price by Rs 8.85 per litre.

Since, January 1, petrol and diesel prices had risen by more than Rs 26 a litre before the duty cuts.

The excise duty cut by the Centre last week was first such exercise since the onset of Covid pandemic. In fact, the government had revised excise duty on petrol and diesel sharply in March and again in May last year to mobilise additional resources for Covid relief measures.

The excise duty was raised by Rs 13 and Rs 16 per litre on petrol and diesel between March 2020 and May 2020 to stand high at Rs 31.8 on diesel and Rs 32.9 per litre on petrol before the Centre finally decided on the duty cut.

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