State-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) -Indian Oil, BPCL and HPCL are under pressure on the bourses trading lower by 2% each on reports that the government has not given a clearance to these companies for hiking petrol prices.
Yesterday, the oil firms could not get the "informal political approval" they used to seek from their majority shareholder, the reports suggest.
The OMCs needed to increase petrol prices by over Rs 2 per litre to achieve parity with the imported cost on account of the weakening rupee. The Indian rupee depreciated to Rs 53.07 per US dollar in the second fortnight of December, based on which the rates on January 1 were to be decided. The average exchange rate stood at Rs 51.98 per US dollar in the first fortnight of December.
The public sector oil companies have started losing around Rs 450 crore per day on the sales of diesel, kerosene and domestic LPG below market prices as the Indian basket of crude imports hovering at over $105 a barrel, reports suggest.
