OMCs eye daily change in fuel prices

New Delhi: State-owned oil marketing firms are looking at the option of daily changing petrol and diesel depending upon their prices in international market and current exchange rate.

“This is the intention but no action is being taken right now. We are looking at it and when some concrete will happen we will inform general public,” an official from one of the oil marketing companies told this newspaper.

Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum own around 90 per cent petrol pumps in the country.  India deregulated petrol prices in  June  2010 and diesel in October 2014.

Since then, PSU oil firms have been changing prices of these two products once in 15 days depending upon their prices in the international markets and currency exchange rate.

However, 15 days backlog in some instances had resulted in inventory losses for oil marketing firms when crude oil prices saw a sharp reduction in past.

The move will make oil marketing companies margins more predictable. It will also help India to move an international standard of fuel pricing.

The move would free private players — Essar Oil and RIL, which currently follow the price set by state-owned companies, to also shift to a dynamic model.

Last week oil marketing companies had  cut petrol prices by  Rs 3.77 per litre (excluding state levies) and diesel by Rs 2.91 a litre (excluding state levies) due to decrease in global crude oil prices. However, crude oil prices have shot to one month high after US missiles attack on Friday at a Syrian airbase.