Petrol price slashed by Rs5.45, HSD Rs8.42

The government on Tuesday slashed the fuel prices from Wednesday (today), in line with the recommendations of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA), according to a notification issued by the finance ministry.

The ministry notified the new reduced prices of petrol and diesel for the next fortnight. It did not notify the reduced prices of light diesel oil and kerosene for being deregulated. A separate notification was issued by Ogra for the decrease in the price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

According to the ministry, the new price of petrol is now Rs288.49 per litre, Rs 5.45 down from the previous Rs293.94. Similarly, high-speed diesel (HSD) will be available for Rs281.96 per litre, Rs8.42 down from previous rate of Rs290.38 per litre.

According to the notification, the new prices will be applicable from midnight Tuesday and remain valid for the next fortnight. In a statement, the ministry said that the prices of petroleum products had seen a decreasing trend in the international market during the last fortnight.

Read more: Fuel prices likely to be slashed on May 1

The price of kerosene and light diesel oil has also been reduced, officials said. They added that kerosene price had been reduced by Rs8.74 per litre and the LDO by Rs5.63 paisa per litre. However, since these prices had been de-regulated, these were not mention in the ministry notification.

Separately, Ogra notified Rs11.88 per kilogram decrease in the LPG price to Rs238.46 per kg for the month of May. Following the notification, the price of a domestic LPG cylinder witnessed a decline of Rs140 and the commercial cylinder of Rs539.

In April, the LPG price was fixed at Rs250 per kg and domestic cylinder was available at Rs2,954 and commercial cylinder at Rs11,366 in the open market. However, the domestic cylinder would now be available at Rs 2,814 and commercial cylinder at Rs10,826.

Ogra said in a statement that the LPG producer price was linked to the Saudi Aramco-CP and the US dollar exchange rate. As compared to previous month, the Saudi Aramco-CP has decreased by 5.6%. The average dollar exchange rate has also gone down by 0.18%, resulting to 4.74% decrease in the price.