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Mr Murli Deora

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Nov. 25 With a steep fall in global crude prices, the Government is mulling passing on the benefits to the retail consumers of petroleum products. The Petroleum Minister, Mr Murli Deora, said, “The international prices have fallen and there is an expectation that prices need to be reduced. I am also of the opinion that they should be reduced, but it can be only after the Assembly elections.”

The last phase of State elections will be held on December 24. Mr Deora was speaking to newspersons at the sidelines of the India-CIS Roundtable on hydrocarbons here on Tuesday. He, however, did not indicate how much the cut in retail selling prices could be.

The Petroleum Secretary, Mr R. S. Pandey, said that a comprehensive proposal would be placed before the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) highlighting the situation and the remedial steps that can be taken.

The public sector oil marketing companies have suffered a net loss of over Rs 14,000 crore in the first-half of the current fiscal. Their loss on fuel sales this current fiscal is estimated at Rs 1, 10,000 crore , Mr Pandey said.

The possibility of prices being rolled back to the levels in June, when the increases were effected, looks unlikely as profit on sale of diesel is still not significant, a Ministry official said. The Government had raised petrol price by Rs 5 a litre, diesel by Rs 3 a litre and domestic LPG by Rs 50 a cylinder.

The public sector oil marketing companies are making profit on petrol and diesel, but continue to incur revenue loss on kerosene sold under the public distribution system and on domestic LPG.

The companies are losing Rs 22.40 a litre on kerosene and Rs 343.49 for every LPG cylinder. The companies are making a profit of Rs 9.86 a litre on petrol and Re 0.70 a litre on diesel currently.

The Indian crude oil basket on Monday went up marginally to $45.54 a barrel in line with the global crude prices.

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