Dip in fuel price hits ROs of IOCL
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, November 30 2018:
The decrease in price of petrol and diesel during the last 25 days has severely affected the retail outlets of Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) in the State.
Since the past seven months, the cost of crude oil reached upto 85 dollars per barrel.
The price began dropping around two months ago before reaching around 58.2295 dollars per barrel of crude oil.
When the price per barrel of crude oil was 85 dollars, the price of petrol and diesel in Imphal, reached Rs 81.99 per litre and Rs 73.41 respectively in the first week of October.
Following the increase in price of petrol and diesel, the State Government reduced the value added tax on petrol by Rs 4.79 and on diesel by Rs 4.80, which resulted in the price of petrol and diesel coming down to Rs 77.20 and Rs 68.61 respectively in Imphal on October 5 .
However, gradual increase in price of crude oil resulted in the price of petrol and diesel climbing to Rs 78.26 and Rs 71.01 respectively at Imphal on October 19 .
The price began dropping from the next day, October 20 and it has been dropping till today because the price per barrel of crude oil came down to just 58.295 dollars.
Today, the price of petrol and diesel in Imphal is Rs 68.99 per litre and Rs 63.68 per litre respectively which shows that since, October 5, the price of petrol and diesel has dropped by Rs 12.99 per litre and Rs 9.73 per litre respectively.
However, when it comes to the period between April and September, the price of petrol increased by Rs 10.13 per litre and diesel increased by Rs 10.7 per litre, and fluctuation in price of petroleum products has greatly affected the retail outlets in the State.
The decrease in price of petroleum products from October till date, has resulted in loss to the tunes of lakh of rupees to the retail outlets.
The loss is greater when it comes to retail outlets like PCTC of Khoyathong which houses numerous storage tanks.
According to a reliable source, IOCL has not been able to get the oil market share from the State as it used to during November last year.
The retail outlets are also refusing the 5 days revolving credit benefit provided by the IOCL.
On the other hand, the source also informed that the nowadays, the retail outlets have not been able to sell the petroleum products as much as they once did in the past.