With oil touching $120 a barrel intraday and at ₹92 to the dollar, India now pays the highest for oil in history, in rupee terms.
India would fork out ₹11,040 per barrel of —the highest ever. This even as crude trades at levels 25 per cent lower than its earlier peak of $138 in March 2022, just days after the breakout of the war in Ukraine and 30 per cent below its all-time high of $148 in July 2008.
As the US-Isreal-Iran war rages on with no end in sight, crude has soared over 64 per cent to $120 a barrel from $73, just before the start of the war.
With rupee having depreciated about 20 per cent from ₹77 to the dollar when the Ukraine war broke out, to ₹92 now, oil costs the highest in rupee terms today.
Rupee cost of crude is now ₹11,040, surpassing ₹10,630 at crude’s peak during the Ukraine war. At its all-time high in 2008, the rupee cost then worked out to ₹6,364.
The retail price of petrol was capped at around ₹97 per litre in May 2022 and has remained largely range bound at around ₹100 for a while now.
If fuel prices continue unchanged, the impact on OMCs this year could be intense. Industries such as FMCG, paints and fertilisers that depend on crude and its derivatives as inputs also won’t be spared as their margins could come under severe pressure.