Petrolprices march towards all time high levels has been temporarily halted by theoil marketing companies (OMCs) as they chose to keep the retail rates of petroland diesel static for sixth consecutive day even though global oil pricesremained firm with crude close to $50 a barrel.
Accordingly,there was no change in retail price of auto fuels on Sunday with price ofpetrol remaining at Rs 83.71 a litre and diesel Rs 73.87 a litre in Delhi.Across the country as well the price of the two petroleum products remainedunchanged.
OMCshave gone on a pause mode at a time when news of successful coronavirus andexpectations of big pick up in demand had kept crude on the boil with pricesbreaching $50 a barrel mark. Crude, however, has remained static for late fewdays reducing any pressure on upward revision in fuel prices.
Petrolprices was very close to breaching the all time high level of Rs 84 a litre(reached on October 4, 2018) when it touched Rs 83.71 a litre on Monday. Butthe March has been halted ever since then with no price revision by the OMCs.
Globalcrude prices have risen almost $10 a barrel in last one month to reaching over$50 a barrel now. But even at this level, it is far less than than averagecrude price of $80.08 a barrel in October 2018 when petrol prices reached highsof Rs 84 a litre in the Capital.
WithSunday's pause, fuel prices have now increased on 15 of the past 24 days withpetrol prices rising by Rs 2.65 per litre and diesel by 3.41 a litre.
Petrolprices had been static since September 22, and diesel rates hadn't changedsince October 2.
Thoughretail pricing of petrol and diesel has been deregulated and oil marketingcompanies were following a daily price revision formula, the same was suspendended for almost two months to prevent volatility in international oil marketsfrom impacting fuel prices regularly during the pandemic.