O ring Manufacturers Fiscal considerations are far higher

Oil prices is "under our close watch," he said.Earlier this week, a senior finance ministry official had stated that a cut in excise duty was not advisable if the govement was to stick to the path of reducing budgetary deficit. The govement is targeting reducing fiscal deficit to 3.3 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the current fiscal, from 3.5 per cent last fiscal."Every rupee cut of excise on fuel will result in a loss of Rs 13,000 crore to the govement," the official had said. O ring Manufacturers "Fiscal considerations are far higher than one or two rupee price impact on consumers. One or two rupee increase doesnt impact inflation," he had said.The central govement levies Rs 19.48 a litre of excise duty on petrol and Rs 15.33 per litre on diesel. State sales tax or VAT vary from state to state. In Delhi, VAT on petrol is Rs 15.84 and Rs 9.68 a litre on diesel. Pradhan blamed geopolitical reasons for the spike in inteational oil prices, which is getting translated into increases in retail selling price of petrol and diesel.Listing the reasons, he said oil cartel OPEC has agreed to continue with output squeeze while the situation in Venezeula, Iran and Syria were contributing to the spike.

State-owned oil firms, which have been since June last year revising auto fuel prices daily, have kept prices unchanged for the second day today. This after petrol price was hiked by 72 paisa a litre in last 10 days and diesel by a rupee.Petrol in the national capital now costs Rs 74.63 a litre, the highest since September 14, 2013, when rates had hit Rs 76.06. Diesel price at Rs 65.93 is the highest ever. India has the highest retail prices of petrol and diesel among South Asian nations as taxes account for half of the pump rates.The govement had raised excise duty nine times between November 2014 and January 2016 to shore up finances as global oil prices fell, but then cut the tax just once in October last year by Rs 2 a litre.Subsequent to that excise duty reduction, the Centre had asked states to also lower VAT, but just four of them - Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh - reduced rates while others including BJP-ruled ones ignored the call.In all, duty on petrol rate was hiked by Rs 11.77 per litre and that on diesel by 13.47 a litre in those 15 months that helped govements excise mop up more than double to Rs 2,42,000 crore in 2016-17 from Rs 99,000 crore in 2014-15.

Singapore: Oil prices edged lower on Monday as a rising rig count in the United States pointed to higher production, but prices held near more than three-year highs and were on track to rise for a second consecutive month.The oil complex has been driven by supply conces amid prospects of the United States reimposing sanctions on Iran, while OPEC-led producers continue to withhold supplies.Brent crude futures, the inteational benchmark, dipped 39 cents, or 0.5 per cent, to $74.25 a barrel at 0305 GMT. Prices climbed as high as $75.47 last week, levels not seen since November, 2014.US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $67.89 a barrel, down 21 cents, or about 0.3 per cent, from their last settlement."There’s a small drop in trading this moing but volumes are low and there’s not much commitment in the selling. The overall trend is positive and there’s potential for the market to close higher again today," said Michael McCarthy, chief marketing strategist at CMC Markets.