Petrol price cut on the cards

New Delhi, Nov 29: Petrol prices may be cut by Rs 1.02 a litre this week, the second reduction this month, on falling global oil rates.

State-owned oil companies, which on November 16 cut petrol price by Rs 2.22 per litre, may cut rates by another Rs 1.02 a litre on November 30 when they review the retail rates in line with international trends, a top official said.

Petrol now costs Rs 66.42 per litre in Delhi.

Prices of international gasoline, or petrol, have averaged USD 107 per barrel during the second half of November as against USD 115.85 a barrel average during the first fortnight that formed the basis for the Rs 2.22 per litre cut in prices effected from November 16.

But some of the decline in international rates has been taken away by the appreciating rupee which has averaged above Rs 52 to a US dollar as against USD 49.30 to a dollar in first fortnight of November. Oil companies revise prices of petrol, which was freed from the government control in June last year, on the basis of fortnightly average international oil prices.

"The reduction in oil price warrants a cut of Rs 0.85 per litre in the petrol price, excluding all taxes," the official said, adding that the retail price -- after taking into account the tax incidence -- would go down by Rs 1.02 per litre.

This would be the second reduction in petrol price since January 2009 when rates were cut by Rs 5 per litre. Before that the then Oil Minister Murli Deora had made oil firms slash petrol price by an equal proportion in December 2008.

PTI