Petrol Prices reduced Rs. 0.78 per litre from Midnight

Providing some relief to consumers battling high inflation, oil companies have decided to cut petrol prices by Rs. 0.65 per litre excluding taxes from midnight today. This means, in New Delhi, petrol prices will go down by Rs. 0.78 per litre.

This is the second reduction in petrol prices this month. On November 16, petrol prices were cut by Rs. 2.22 per litre. Petrol now costs Rs. 66.42 per litre in Delhi.

The downward revision in petrol rates is due to a correction in global crude prices. Prices of international gasoline, or petrol, have averaged $107 per barrel during the second half of November as against $115.85 a barrel average during the first fortnight that formed the basis for the Rs. 2.22 per litre cut in prices, effected from November 16.

However, some of the decline in international rates has been taken away by the appreciating rupee which has averaged above Rs. 52 to a US dollar as against Rs. 49.30 to a dollar in first fortnight of November.

Oil companies revise prices of petrol, which was freed from the government control in June last year, on the basis of fortnightly average international oil prices.

This is the third reduction in petrol price since January 2009 when rates were cut by Rs. 5 per litre. Before that, the then oil minister Murli Deora had made oil firms slash petrol price by an equal proportion in December 2008.