The state-run oil marketing companies have kept the petrol and diesel prices unchanged on Wednesday. Yesterday, they had hiked the fuel prices by 5-6 paise across the major cities in the country. Today, in Delhi, while petrol is selling at Rs 73.13 per litre, diesel is being sold at  Rs 66.71 per litre.

In Mumbai, people need to shell out Rs 78.70 to buy one litre of petrol, whereas, for diesel, they need to spend Rs 69.83 per litre. In Kolkata, petrol and diesel are being sold at Rs 75.15 and Rs 68.45 per litre respectively.

In Chennai, diesel is costing Rs 70.44 a litre, while petrol is costing Rs 75.90 a litre, according to the website of Indian Oil Corporation or IOC.

In the last seven days, the fuel prices have been raised thrice. The petrol prices have been increased by 5-8 paise per litre, whereas the diesel prices were raised by 5-9 paise per litre across major cities.

Yesterday, the crude oil prices hit a session high after the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido called for military backing to end Maduro’s rule but pared gains after the government assured about the loyalty of top military leaders and said the government-owned oil company PDVSA’s operations were not disrupted. The international Brent crude futures were last seen trading 76 cents, or 1.1 percent higher at $72.80, while the US WTI crude was at $63.35, down 0.56 cents or 0.88% lower than the last close.

Last week, Brent crude hit a six-month high after crossing $75 level. The oil prices rallied after the world’s largest economy, the US announced its decision of not granting sanction waivers to the Iranian oil importers including India from May 2. The prices fell on Friday after US President Donald Trump urged the OPEC countries to raise the output and reduce the oil prices. Today the Brent crude futures were at $ $71.82 per barrel, 0.31% lower than the previous settlement and US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $63.43, down by 0.07 points from the last close.

Since the beginning of 2019, there has been a surge in oil prices by more than thirty percent and in April, the prices have rallied by around 4% and last week they even crossed $75 per barrel.