PSUs may hike petrol price on June 16

State-owned oil firms may hike petrol price by about Rs 0.50 per litre from June 16 as last month's steep increase in rates is not enough to cover the cost of raw material (crude oil).

"If there are no (political) pressure, we would like to hike petrol price from midnight of June 15 and 16," a top official of Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation's largest fuel retailer, said.

IOC and its sister PSUs had on May 15 raised petrol price by Rs 5 per litre, the biggest hike ever.

"Even after that hike, we were losing Rs 4.58 per litre. After including VAT, the desired increase at retail level in Delhi came to Rs 5.50 a litre," he said.

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The desired hike in price has been calculated based on the average crude oil price of the first fortnight of May.

However, from June 1, which takes into account the average of second half of May when international rates moderated, IOC is losing Rs 1.15 per litre. After including VAT, the desired hike in Delhi would be Rs 1.35 a litre.

"We will have to take a view (on hiking petrol price) next week," he said. "The government is not compensating us for selling petrol at below international cost since June 2010 when its pricing was freed."

Though the government had freed petrol pricing from its control, state-owned retailers have been informally being guided by 'advice' from the oil ministry. They did not hike rates in the run-up to the assembly elections in five states, including West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

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On diesel, the official said, the company was losing Rs 12.64 per litre. After adding VAT, the desired increase in rates in Delhi is Rs 14.22 per litre.

Similarly, on domestic LPG it is losing Rs 381.14 per cylinder and Rs 27.47 a litre on PDS kerosene.

"We are losing Rs 256 crore (Rs 2.56 billion) per day on selling the three fuel at government controlled price. At this rate, we will end the fiscal with a revenue loss of Rs 89,300 crore (Rs 893 billion).

The industry (IOC, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum) are likely to see Rs 160,568 crore (Rs 1,605.68 billion) of revenue loss in 2011-12 fiscal.