Petroleum price hike by Jan end: Govt

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Mumbai, January 8:: Government is likely to raise prices of petroleum products by the end of this month to help oil firms partly offset losses on selling fuel below cost in the wake of international crude prices touching USD 100 a barrel.

"When crude prices are going up, how can you expect petrol prices to go down? A marginal hike in the price of petroleum products appears unavoidable. It is on the cards, "Petroleum Secretary M S Srinivasan told reporters.

Srinivasan said a Group of Ministers (GoM) is meeting on January 17 in New Delhi to deliberate on the issue and its recommendations would go to the Cabinet for final approval.

"All these will take time... the hike is likely to be effected by the end of the month," Srinivasan said.

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, however, remained non-commital on the issue. "The GOM, under the chairmanship of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, will deliberate on the issue in Delhi. I don't have any comment to offer."

Justifying a hike in petroleum products, Srinivasan said total under-recoveries of state-run oil marketing firms such as IOC, BPCL and HPCL stand at Rs 72,000 crore.

"The under-recovery for petrol currently stands at Rs 10 per litre, Rs 9 per litre of diesel, for kerosene it is Rs 19 per litre and for LPG, the under-recovery is Rs 320 per cylinder," he said.

The crude price is expected to increase to USD 150 per barrel in June this year, Srinivasan said.