There has been some relief after the reduction in excise duty in the prices of petrol and diesel, but due to the high level of crude oil, the price is still in the range of Rs 95 to 100 per liter. Meanwhile, the Organization of the Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) has refused to increase the production of crude oil to soften the prices. In such a situation, the big consumer countries of crude oil including India, America have prepared a counter strategy, so that due to more supply, the prices themselves come down. A government official said on Tuesday that India is preparing to extract 50 lakh barrels of crude oil from strategic oil reserves to bring down crude oil prices.
India has decided to release 5 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The US, Japan, China, Britain and South Korea have also taken similar steps. America has decided to release 50 million barrels of crude oil. Significantly, India has been saying that the price of petroleum products should be reasonable and should be decided by the market and not controlled by the producing countries. The supply of oil to India and other consumer countries is being artificially controlled by the producing countries. Due to this, the prices of crude oil have increased, which has affected the major consuming countries. The government has recently reduced the excise duty on petrol by Rs 5 and on diesel by Rs 10 per liter. Still the prices remain high. The US government had requested OPEC countries to increase production, which was ignored.
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India is working with America, China and other big economies to bring more crude oil to the market. This exercise will start in the next 7-10 days. Crude oil extracted from India’s strategic reserves will be sold to Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL). Both these government oil refinery units are connected to strategic oil reserves through pipelines.
However, amid the preparations of countries like India, America, OPEC + countries have indicated that if the big consumer countries bring out crude oil from their reserve reserves and the corona epidemic reduces demand, then they are considering a plan to increase production.
