New Delhi, May 27 (IANS): Retail price of regular petrol in the city of Mumbai is just a day away from crossing Rs 100 a litre mark, its highest level ever, with prices of the auto fuels being revised upwards again by Oil marketing companies (OMCs) on Thursday.
But wait has ended for the city of Jaipur where with Thursday hike, regular petrol is now being sold at Rs 100.17 per litre. Similar is the case with several towns and cities in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra where petrol price has crossed the Rs 100 per litre mark much before Thursday's price rise.
Petrol price in Mumbai rose by 23 paise a litre to Rs 99.94 a litre on Thursday. Similarly, diesel price in the city also rose by 30 paise per litre to Rs 91.87 a litre, the highest among all four major metro cities in the country.
Premium petrol price has also already crossed the Rs 100 per litre mark in the city and other parts of the country through an increase in the retail rates in the month of January and February.
Thursday's price rise came after OMCs kept fuel prices unchanged on the previous day. The oil companies have been following this trend for the past couple of weeks when fuel prices are raised on few days and kept unchanged on others.
With the hike, fuel price has now increased and remained unchanged on 14 and 13 days respectively so far in the month of May. The 14 increases in May have taken up petrol price by Rs 3.28 per litre in Delhi. Similarly, diesel price has increased by Rs 3.88 per litre in the national capital.
Under daily price revision, OMCs revise petrol and diesel prices every morning benchmarking retail fuel prices to a 15-day rolling average of global refined products' prices and dollar exchange rate. However, in a market where fuel prices need to be increased successively, oil companies this month have been holding back price rise on few days before starting the process all over again.
With global crude prices rising again to around the $69 a barrel mark, OMCs may have to keep revising prices upwards for some more time. Global oil prices are also expected to remain firm now that the entry of Iran back into the oil trade after the dilution of US sanctions seems getting delayed.