Kathmandu, November 1

Petrol, diesel and cooking gas will get dearer from tomorrow as Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has hiked price of petroleum products effective from Thursday. NOC has hiked two rupees on the sale of each litre of petrol, one rupee each on diesel and kerosene and Rs 25 on each cylinder of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), popularly known as cooking gas.

As per the revised rates, petrol will cost Rs 100 per litre, diesel and kerosene will cost Rs 75 per litre and cooking gas Rs 1,350 per cylinder from Thursday, according to NOC. “NOC’s fortnightly (November 1 to 15) profit will hover around Rs 19.7 million after adjusting fuel prices,” said Birendra Goit, spokesperson for NOC. “If the rates were not revised, the corporation would have to incur fortnightly loss of around Rs 110 million.”

NOC has said that despite making adjustments in fuel prices, it has been bearing loss of 75 paisa on sales of each litre of diesel and Rs 215.80 on every cylinder of cooking gas. However, NOC generates Rs 5.30 profit on sales of each litre of petrol.

Goit further said that NOC is also preparing to hike the price of aviation turbine fuel marginally so that NOC can compensate the losses borne by the state-owned oil company on diesel and cooking gas.

As per NOC, fortnightly sales of petrol is around  21,000 kilolitres, whereas the country consumes 60,000 kilolitres of  diesel and 1,053,415 cylinders of cooking gas in 15 days. Though the automatic pricing mechanism allows NOC to adjust price of petroleum products every fortnight as per international market trend by up to two per cent from the base price of price list of Indian Oil Corporation, NOC has not effectively implemented this mechanism.