PETROL CROSSES ₹92 MARK IN MUMBAI, DIESEL AT ALL-TIME HIGH

NEW DELHI: Petrol price on Friday crossed ₹92 a litre mark in Mumbai, while diesel touched an all-time high after rates were raised for the third time this week.

Petrol and diesel prices were hiked by 25 paise per litre each, according to a price notification from oil marketing companies.

This took the petrol price in Delhi to ₹85.45 per litre and ₹92.04 in Mumbai.

Diesel rate climbed to ₹75.63 a litre in the national capital—its highest ever. In Mumbai, diesel price too increased to an all-time high of ₹82.40, the price data showed.

Petrol and diesel prices were raised by 25 paise per litre each on January 18 and 19.

Fuel prices are now at a record high in the country, prompting cries for a cut in excise duty to ease the burden on the consumers.

Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan earlier this week blamed Saudi oil output cut for the surge in oil prices but remained non-committal on tax cuts.

Top oil explorer Saudi Arabia has pledged additional voluntary output cuts of 1 million barrels per day in February and March, which has led to price climbing to most since the pandemic broke out.

“A few months back, we all were discussing about consumption-centric revival, demanddriven revival, and we were supposed to restrict our production cut, and ramp-up (of production) gradually by January. But contradiction to that, we all are controlling oil production (now),” he said at an energy conference referring to a deal between Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and its allies, including Russia.

This cut, he said, was “creating confusion” among consuming nations.

“This kind of scenario will push us to more alternate methods of energy sourcing. Every country has its own strategy. Being a major consumer of the globe today, we would be looking towards more alternate energy sources,” Pradhan said.

“If the producing countries will not recognise our aspiration then new business models are bound to come up,” he had noted.