Oil Marketing Companies

Underrecoveries reach Rs 8/litre on petrol and Rs 9/litre on diesel in September

US share of India's LPG imports has fallen to 16% in September as UAE supplies surge, while delivered LPG premiums have rebounded to nearly $450 per tonne

State-run oil marketing companies are facing mounting losses on petrol and diesel sales as a surge in crude prices outpaces unchanged domestic fuel prices, rating agency ICRA said. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) are losing Rs 8 a litre on petrol, and Rs 9 on diesel, while under-recoveries on domestic liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stood at about Rs 300 per cylinder, ICRA said. "At these levels, the daily loss to the OMCs is estimated at Rs 530 crore," ICRA said. Crude oil prices have risen sharply in recent weeks amid escalating geopolitical tensions and supply disruptions in West Asia. The surge was driven by renewed US-Iran conflict, the shutdown of Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline and heightened Houthi activities in the Red Sea. The price of the basket of crude oil India imports rose to USD 117.4 per barrel as on September 21, 2026, from the 2025-26 average of around USD 66 a barrel. "The ...

Equirus Securities sees HPCL as the most vulnerable among major oil marketers, while BPCL is relatively better placed due to stronger integration and distillate yields

OMCs are likely to report sequential improvement in Q2FY27 on stronger refining margins and lower LPG under-recoveries, but H2FY27 faces significant downside risks

Oil at $100: OMC stocks have already been punished significantly, and therefore investors are not reacting in panic after such a major fall, believe analysts.

OMCs are losing ₹5 a litre on petrol and ₹23 on diesel as Brent crude crosses $100 a barrel, while escalating US-Iran tensions add to India's energy supply risks

Brent Crude oil last traded above the $100 mark on May 25, 2026, before Wednesday; since then select stocks from the Nifty Oil & Gas index soared up to 82%, while two declined over 10%, shows data.

Nomura maintains its bearish medium-to-long-term outlook on crude oil, citing the potential for the largest-ever global oil surplus in 2027E based on IEA forecasts.

The ratings agency estimates that an integrated OMC's operating profit would turn negative at around $115 a barrel, assuming no further increase in petrol and diesel retail prices.

Elevated crude prices against the backdrop of the West Asia crisis remained the key factor that roiled the OMCs' Q1 earnings performance.

Higher crude prices, a weaker rupee, elevated insurance costs and delayed fuel price hikes are expected to weigh on the June-quarter earnings of state-run oil marketing companies

Petrol and diesel sales by India's three state-run fuel retailers rose sharply in the first half of July, helped by below-normal monsoon rainfall that boosted fuel demand from farmers and motorists, preliminary sales data showed on Thursday. Petrol sales by Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) climbed 22.9 per cent to 1.63 million tonnes during July 1-15, compared with 1.33 million tonnes in the corresponding period a year earlier. The volume was also 26.7 per cent higher than 1.29 million tonnes sold during the first half of July 2024 and 38.6 per cent above the level recorded in the same period of 2023. Compared with the first half of June, however, petrol sales fell 4.4 per cent from 1.71 million tonnes. Diesel sales, a key indicator of economic activity in India, rose 20.9 per cent year-on-year to 3.46 million tonnes in the first fortnight of July from 2.87 million tonnes a year earlier. The volume was 18.4 per cent hig

Nomura said that elevated crude oil prices are negative for OMCs' marketing margins and CGDs' input costs, while positive for upstream realisations in the near term.

The rupee slipped to a three-week low as dollar buying by oil firms and NDF demand offset support from lower crude oil prices

Analysts and the government differ on fuel under-recoveries as crude prices ease, highlighting contrasting views on OMC margins and India's fuel pricing formula

High crude oil prices pushed state-run oil retailers into massive under-recoveries despite fuel price hikes, while LPG sales continued to remain loss-making, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said

Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said rising crude prices during the West Asia conflict led to ₹74,781 crore in losses for state-run OMCs till June 30

Every time India has faced a major crisis - whether devastating floods, a once-in-a-century pandemic or the latest conflict in West Asia that threatened global oil supplies - it has been the country's state-run oil companies that have quietly kept fuel flowing. For decades, India's public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) have often been criticised for low returns, government intervention in fuel pricing and bloated operations. They have twice been put on the block for privatisation, with plans to sell Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) gathering momentum in 2002 before being halted by a Supreme Court ruling and again in 2020, before the process was abandoned after failing to attract enough bids. Yet every national emergency has reinforced why governments have been reluctant to loosen their grip on companies that control the country's energy lifeline, analysts and industry officials said. When unprecedented floods submerged Chennai in

Higher global LPG prices and limited pass-through to household consumers have resulted in Rs 22,000 crore of under-recoveries for oil marketing companies since March