Oily Mess
A sharp increase in global crude oil prices has pushed retail rates of petrol and diesel to historic highs. Taxes are partly to be blamed, but reducing excise duties may not be easy for a cash-strapped government
On January 19, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan came down heavily on oil-producing countries for going slow in ramping up supplies and artificially inflating global crude prices. A few months back we were discussing about consumption-centric economic revival, demand revival, and we are supposed to restrict our production cuts and gradually ramp up production by January - but in contradiction to that, we are now controlling oil production, Pradhan said at an energy conference organised by the Atlantic Council. India is the third-largest consumer of energy in the world and imports 85 per cent of its crude requirement every year. Prices of the Indian crude basket have gone up from $40.66 per barrel in October to a shade under $70 per barre
Fuel prices have been on an upswing across the country. After holding the retail price of petrol steady for most of December, oil marketing companies in India started.