After petrol prices were cut for the sixth consecutive day, the state-owned Oil Companies kept rates unchanged today in various state capitals of India. On previous day, prices of petrol were down in the range of 14 paisa to 18 paisa with Mumbai seeing highest cut compared to other metro cities. The status quo comes despite international crude oil prices rising on Wednesday as a supply disruption in Canada tightened the market and after U.S. officials told importers to stop buying Iranian crude from November. In nearly months time, state-owned OMCs like HPCL, IOCL and BPCL have either trim down petrol and diesel prices or maintained a status quo on them. 

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

However, looks like the upcoming elections has finally forced government to ask OMCs to start reversing hike trend in fuel prices. State elections are expected to take place in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in late 2018, calling for major urgency in relaxing petrol prices to save the NDA government from facing the repeat of the Karnataka scenario. 
 
Today in Delhi, 1 litre petrol is priced at Rs 75.55. 

Similarly, Kolkata is charging Rs 78.23  per litre. 

India’s financial hub Mumbai saw major relief in petrol price compared to above mentioned metro cities, as 1 litre petrol was priced at Rs 83.12 today. Looking at the trend, you may soon start paying below Rs 83 in Mumbai. The city was selling petrol over Rs 86 per litre last month. 

In Chennai city, 1 litre petrol was priced at Rs 78.40. 

A litre petrol priced at Rs  76.77 in Bangalore, Rs 81.14 in Bhopal, Rs 74.38 in Bhubaneswar, Rs 72.66 in Chandigarh, Rs 77.07 in Dehradun, Rs 80.03 in Hyderabad, Rs 78.27 in Jaipur, Rs 76.67 in Lucknow, Rs 81.04 in Patna, Rs 75.97 in Raipur and Rs 79.99 in Srinagar.

Moreover, today Brent crude futures had climbed 61 cents, or 0.8 percent, from their last close to $76.92 per barrel by 0650 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $70.88, up 35 cents, or 0.5 percent.