After two consecutive price cuts in November, petrol consumers may need to brace themselves for a hike in retail price. The hike could be anywhere between Rs 0.65 and Rs 0.80 a litre.
“Only on Thursday (end of fortnight) we will get a clear picture, as the factors resulting in the revision are very dynamic and constantly changing,” a senior oil industry official said.
The public sector oil retailers – Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation – revise the price on the basis of fortnightly average of international prices based on the international price (f.o.b) of product and currency fluctuation.
The private retailers may go ahead with an increase but it remains to be seen whether public sector oil marketing companies will take a call as these decisions have political implications.
The continued fall of rupee versus dollar has resulted in an increase in the cost of oil imports. Parallely, international prices of petrol have also increased by about $2 a barrel to almost $111/barrel (Singapore price) since the last price cut, an industry official added.
Every dollar increase or decrease in Singapore petrol prices will have around Rs 0.31 impact on the domestic price, the official said.
Last month, while reducing the retail price, the public sector oil retailers had cautioned that current trend of rising international petrol prices and further deterioration of exchange rate will impact the direction of prices in the next pricing cycles.