Fuel prices stable for over 3 weeks, PSU oil cos expanded retail operations

Fuel prices in the country remained steady on Monday maintaining a three week period of unchanged prices as softening crude and upcoming assembly elections in a few states have kept Oil companies from revising the retail prices.

Accordingly, petrol continues to be priced at Rs 91.17 a litre and diesel Rs 81.47 a litre in the capital on Saturday. Fuel prices have not been revised now for over 21 days. Across the country as well, petrol and diesel prices remain unchanged. But the pause has not helped in bringing down petrol prices that have crossed Rs 100 per litre-mark in several parts of the country.

Prices have stabilised amid an outcry over record-high fuel prices, which have been witnessing an upswing since January, leading to demands for a cut in excise duty. Petrol and diesel prices are revised daily in line with benchmark international price and foreign exchange rates.

Meanwhile, India's fuel demand, except ATF, has returned to pre-Covid levels and a reflating economy will help consumption grow in near future, the head of the nation's top oil firm said on Tuesday.

Fuel sales had fallen by a record 45.8 per cent in April last year when a nationwide lockdown was imposed to check the spread of coronavirus infections. Demand started to recover with the easing of lockdown restrictions, with petrol returning to normal growth first and now diesel too is back at pre-Covid levels.

Meanwhile, Public sector oil marketing companies IndianOil, Hindustan Petroleum and privation bound Bharat Petroleum remained active in the country's oil market in 2020 even though the pandemic and lockdown severely dented demand for petroleum products.

Even with petrol and diesel sales remaining below the pre-Covid levels in the last part of 2020, the PSU oil companies continued to invest in expanding their retail outlets with the three adding 5482 retail outlets in the 10-month period of FY21 up to January end 2021.

The private sector on the other hand remained mute on their marketing initiatives adding a mere 376 fuel outlets.

Cities	Petrol (In Rs)	Diesel (In Rs)
New Delhi	91.17	81.47
Kolkata	91.35	84.35
Mumbai	97.57	88.6
Chennai	93.11	86.45
Gurugram	89.11	81.83
Noida	89.46	82.01
Bengaluru	94.22	86.37
Bhubaneshwar	91.9	88.79
Chandigarh	87.73	81.17
Hyderabad	94.79	88.86
Jaipur	97.38	89.67
Lucknow	89.31	81.85
Patna	93.48	86.73
Trivandrum	93.05	87.53
Pune	97.39	87.07
Bhopal	99.23	89.78
Dehradun	89.89	82.12
Raipur	89.62	88.24
Panjim	89.34	86.17
Ahmedabad	88.31	87.74
Gandhinagar	88.55	87.97