Due to increasing geopolitical tensions between Iran and the US, concerns about energy supplies have increased around the world. In India too, people have started expressing apprehensions about possible shortage or increase in prices of LPG and petroleum products. However, the government has made it clear that there is no shortage of domestic supply of LPG in the country at present, and its distribution is continuing normally.
Officials have appealed to the public not to panic and not believe in rumors spreading about the availability of gas. Meanwhile, there remains a wide gap between the prices of domestic and commercial LPG cylinders in many cities of India; While the price of domestic LPG cylinders was increased by only ₹60 in March, the price of commercial cylinders saw a huge increase of ₹993 on May 1.
Oil companies still in loss
It is worth noting that due to the continuous increase in the prices of petrol, diesel and CNG in the last 15 days, fears of a possible increase in the prices of LPG have also increased. This is because government oil marketing companies (OMCs) are currently incurring huge losses due to rising crude oil prices in the global market. OMCs have increased petrol and diesel prices four times this month, resulting in an increase of about ₹7.5 per litre.
On Monday, the central government said that despite the recent hike in fuel prices, state-run oil marketing companies are still incurring losses of about ₹600 crore daily. “Earlier, oil marketing companies used to incur daily losses of ₹1,000 crore; however, even after the recent price revision, the losses are a little less than ₹600 crore,” said Sujata Sharma, joint secretary in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas.