LPG prices hiked by ₹50; here’s how oil, gas stocks reacted

The petroleum and oil marketing companies on Wednesday hiked the prices of domestic liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders by ₹50 per unit and commercial LPG cylinders by ₹350 per unit with immediate effect. With this, the commercial LPG cylinders will now cost ₹2,119.50 per unit and the domestic LPG cylinders will now cost ₹1,103 per unit in Delhi. 

In Mumbai, the price of non-subsidised LPG cylinders currently stands at ₹1,102.50 per unit. Last month, the oil marketing companies hiked the commercial cylinder prices by ₹25 per unit. The prices of LPG are determined by state-run oil companies on a monthly basis. The price of 19-Kg LPG cylinder has been hiked by 19.8% to ₹2,119 from ₹1,769, whereas the price of 14.2 Kg LPG has been hiked by 4.7% to ₹1,103 from ₹1,053.

Meanwhile, oil marketing companies have also slashed aviation turbine fuel prices by 4%. With this, in the national capital, the ATF price currently stands at 1.07 Lk/kL. Earlier ATF prices in Delhi were 1.12 Lk/kL.

Following this development, shares of Oil & Natural Gas Limited (ONGC), the country’s largest oil and gas producer surged 0.65% to hit an intra-day high of ₹153.30 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange, while Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) stock surged 1.58% to hit an intra-day high of ₹321 apiece on the BSE . The share price of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd was trading marginally higher by 1.13% at ₹76.91.

 The shares of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) surged by 0.40% to ₹216, and the share price of Reliance Industries advanced 0.75% to ₹2339.45. The NSE Nifty energy index surged 0.44% to 21,777.50.

On Wednesday, the Brent crude futures for May surged 46 cents or 0.6%, to $83.91 per barrel at 0445 GMT, whereas the U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for April gained 42 cents, or 0.6%, to $77.47 per barrel.

Earlier this month, the additional excise duty on ATF was also slashed to ₹1.5 per litre from ₹6 per litre and the windfall tax on domestically produced crude oil from ₹5,050 per tonne to ₹4,350 per tonne.  The tax on the export of diesel was slashed to ₹2.5 per from the previous ₹7.5 per litre.

The government earlier said the prices of petrol and diesel have not been increased by public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) since April 6, 2022, despite record-high international prices. As a result, the three state-run fuel retailers — Indian Oil Corporation, BPCL and HPCL — booked a combined loss of ₹27,276 crore in the first six months of the ongoing financial year, against the combined profit before tax of ₹28,360 crore in the first half of the financial year 2021-22.

Rating agency Moody’s last month said the country’s windfall tax on exports of locally-produced oil has helped reduce the state-owned refining and marketing companies' marketing losses.