New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS): Petrol and diesel prices maintained its northward rally on Friday, the eleventh consecutive day when its retail prices rose across the country, with the global oil market remaining stable but firm.
Accordingly, oil marketing companies raised the pump price of petrol by 31 paise and diesel by another 33 paise per litre in Delhi.
With this increase, petrol is now priced at Rs 90.19 a litre and diesel Rs 80.60 a litre in the national capital.
At this price in Delhi, petrol has breached Rs 90 a litre-mark across all metros and around all major cities of the country.
In fact, the retail price of petrol has crossed Rs 100 a litre-mark in several cities in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Thes states also have one of the highest levels of local levies on petroleum products in the country.
In the last 11 days (since February 9), the price has gone up by Rs 3.24 per litre for petrol while diesel rate has risen by Rs 3.47 a litre.
Across the country as well the petrol and diesel price increase ranged from 30-35 paise per litre depending on the level of local taxes on the two petroleum products.
In Mumbai, petrol price is just Rs 3 per litre short (Rs 96.62 a litre) of touching 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 87.67 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.
The increase on Friday has followed the firming global oil prices (both product and crude) earlier. After crossing $ 65 a barrel mark earlier this week, crude has softened a bit to hover around $ 63 a barrel now.
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 hovers at the current level or falls.
The petrol and diesel prices have increased 23 times in 2021 with the two auto fuels increasing by Rs 6.48 and Rs 6.73 per litre respectively so far this year.
Oil companies executives said that petrol and diesel prices may increase further in coming days as retail prices may have to be balanced in line with global developments to prevent OMCs from making losses on sale of auto fuels.