Petrol price may drop Rs7.24/litre for next fortnight

KARACHI: The per litre prices of petrol and diesel may come down by Rs7.24 and Rs16.61 in the next fortnightly price review if the government passes on the impact of retreating global market by not raising the taxation on them, The New learnt on Thursday.

According to the working of the oil industry, all the petroleum prices are showing a declining trend; however, it was not clear if the government would pass on the impact or offset it by raising taxation.

The industry calculations show that ex-depot price of petrol has registered Rs7.24 decrease to Rs230.19 per litre for the next fortnight compared to existing price of Rs.237.43 per litre.

The ex-depot price of diesel has decreased by Rs16.61 to Rs230.82 per litre for the next fortnight compared to current price of Rs247.43 per litre.

The ex-depot price of light diesel reduced by Rs10.87 to Rs186.41 per litre for the upcoming fortnight compared to Rs197.28 per litre now.

The ex-depot price of kerosene declined Rs14.20 to Rs187.82 per litre against Rs197.28 per litre currently.

The prices calculated by the oil industry are based on the existing taxation by the government.

The government is charging zero general sales tax (GST) on petroleum products where the rate of petroleum levy (PL) on petrol is Rs37.42 and on diesel Rs7.58 per litre.

Under the IMF conditions, the government has to raise the levy to Rs50 per litre on diesel and petrol to generate the additional revenue to achieve the tax collection target of this fiscal.

According to the oil sector officials, the government apparently is not in a mood to increase the petroleum prices by raising the rate of levy or re-imposing GST after Ishaq Dar’s taking the help of the Finance Ministry.

“It seems that Dar would not be raising the price of petroleum products, at least for this fortnight to send out a message about his plan to provide relief to the masses as he had pledged to do so before taking the charge of the finance ministry,” a top oil firm official believed.

He said that Dar might pass the impact of global downtrend or he could also decide to stick with the same if global markets further eased in the coming review of prices.

According to him, the average price of crude oil was around 91 dollars per barrel from September 16 to 28, whereas average prices of diesel and petrol were $115 and $81 per barrel respectively in the global market.