Petrol prices remain unchanged on Monday at Rs 91 per litre, diesel remains at Rs 81

NEW DELHI: The rise in the petrol and diesel price has paused for the last couple of days as oil marketing companies have decided to wait and watch the developments on the global oil market before finalising their India retail strategy.

Accordingly, oil marketing companies kept the pump price of petrol and diesel unchanged on Monday. With this, petrol continues to be priced at Rs 91.17 a litre and diesel Rs 81.47 a litre in the national capital. Across the country as well the petrol and diesel prices remain unchanged.

Sources in OMCs said that price pause on Monday followed subdued movement in product price in global markets. The crude oil, which has been on fire for the last couple of weeks has also shown some downward movement lately but staying above $65 a barrel now.

Petrol and diesel prices have been rising continuously since February 9. In the 14 increases since then, prices have gone up by Rs 4.22 per litre for petrol while diesel rate has risen by Rs 4.34 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 2.4 per litre short (Rs 97.57 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 88.60 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.

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 price stabilises. The petrol and diesel prices have increased 26 times in 2021 with the two auto fuels increasing by Rs 7.46 and Rs 7.60 per litre respectively so far this year.

Oil companies' executives said that petrol and diesel prices may increase further in coming days as retail rates may have to be balanced in line with global developments to prevent OMCs from making losses on sale of auto fuels.