Petrol prices have reached an all-time high after a hiatus for over a month on Thursday as rising global oil prices pushed fuel marketing companies to raise for the second time this year.
Petrol prices in Delhi increased by 23 paise a litre on Thursday, the second successive day of fuel price rise, to Rs 84.20 a litre from Rs 83.97 on Wednesday. This is the peak in the national capital since October 4, 2018 when its price had risen to Rs 84 a litre.
However, in other metros the hike has not yet breached the all-time high levels but moving closer to it. In Mumbai, petrol price increased to Rs 90.83 a litre, just 51 paise short of all-time high level of Rs 91.34 on October 4, 2018.
In Chennai, the petrol price is Rs 86.96 a litre, slightly lower than historic high level of Rs 87.33 a litre. In Kolkata, it reached Rs 85.68 a litre on Thursday, very close to record level of Rs 85.80. Along with petrol, the price of diesel on Thursday increased by 26 paise per litre in Delhi to Rs 74.38 a litre.
Since benchmark Brent crude is on the rise for the past few days trading at close to $55 a barrel, a $ 5 increase in just around a weeks time, following the news of successful coronavirus vaccine and continuation of production cuts by OPEC, fuel prices in India could rise further in coming weeks.
Today's increase in fuel prices have shown rise in petrol price by Rs 3.15 per litre and diesel by 3.92 a litre in the last 48 days. They had been static since September 22, and diesel rates hadn't changed since October 2. It started rising in November but remained static since December 8. On January 6 and again on January 7, the hike has returned to an increasing trend ahead.
It may be recalled that the retail pricing of petrol and diesel has been deregulated and oil marketing companies were following a daily price revision formula, though the same was suspended for almost two months to prevent the impact of volatility in international oil markets during the pandemic.
After month-long pause
The OMC's patience of holding back fuel prices was broken on Wednesday when they increased the retail price of petrol and diesel for the first time this year after over a month-long pause.
The OMCs had gone on a pause mode last month at a time when the news of successful coronavirus and expectations of big pick up in demand had kept crude on the boil with prices breaching $ 50 a barrel mark then.
Markets today
However, the petrol price hike has no effect on the markets so far. The key Indian equity indices opened on a positive note on Thursday with the Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) hitting a fresh all-time high.
Nifty touched a new record high of 14,256.25 points.Healthy buying was witnessed in metal, realty, capital goods and banking stocks. Further, a positive trend in the international market also supported the Indian indices.
The rise was also witnessed in the broader markets as the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices were trading around one per cent higher. At 9.40 a.m., Sensex was trading at 48,365.49, higher by 191.43 points or 0.40 per cent from its previous close of 48,174.06.
It opened at 48,524.36 and has so far touched an intraday high of 48,558.34 and a low of 48,360.49 points.Nifty50 was trading at 14,209.50, higher by 63.25 points or 0.45 per cent from its previous close.
