Fuel prices to remain same

KATHMANDU:

Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) — the state-owned petroleum supply monopoly — has said that it will not revise the fuel prices this fortnight (April 16 to 30) citing nominal changes in fuel prices

that it received from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) today as compared to the prices of April 1.

This means, per litre price of petrol will be Rs 109, and of diesel and kerosene will be Rs 86.50 each for another two weeks.

IOC, which is the sole supplier of NOC, fixes oil price rate every fortnight (first and the 16th working day of the English month), based on the international market price.

NOC has been reviewing prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene every fortnight based on the IOC’s price list after the introduction of automatic pricing mechanism in the three commodities on September 29, last year.

NOC’s automatic pricing mechanism allows it to review fuel price by up to two per cent up or down as per the IOC’s fuel price update.

In the international market, oil price witnessed rising trend last month, from March 16 to April 16, as per the website oil-price.net. Brent crude oil price was around $53.5 per barrel (159 litres) on March 16 and it is now at $60.32 per barrel.

“There isn’t much change in the price list of April 1 and April 16, which is why we decided to keep the fuel prices same for this fortnight,” said Mukunda Ghimire, NOC spokesperson.

As per the price list of April 1, NOC’s monthly profit is estimated to stand at Rs 630 million. NOC generates profit of Rs 13.36, Rs 4.04 and Rs 23.67 in the sale of each litre of petrol, diesel and kerosene, respectively.

Source: THT