New petro minister to look at freeing retail prices - Business Standard

Decontrolling the prices of petroleum products will be one of the key issues the new petroleum minister will have to address, according to the ministry’s bureaucrats who have drawn up a list of priority items.

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“Freeing prices of sensitive petroleum products to ensure financial health of oil marketing companies (OMCs) is one of the key issues that would be looked at by the new minister. However, some kind of ceiling in crude oil price may be put in place, beyond which the government would intervene in the interest of consumers,” said an official. The bottomlines of three OMCs — Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum - have been in the red on account of subsidised sales of petrol, diesel, kerosene oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Notably, the Indian basket of imported crude oil touched a peak of $142 a barrel in last July.

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