Zeebiz Bureau

New Delhi: With losses widening to Rs 3.56 per litre, public sector oil firms may hike the prices of petrol between Rs 3-4 per litre.

As per Zee Business sources, the price of petrol is likely to be hiked in a couple of days. This has reportedly been done following the meeting of Oil Marketing companies.

State-owned oil firms had last hiked petrol price by Rs 0.70 per litre with effect from July 24 and since then global oil rates have soared more than USD 12 per barrel.

Petrol was deregulated or freed from government control in June 2010 but rarely have prices moved in tandem with the cost.

The oil firms had pressed for raising rates by Rs 1.37 a litre earlier this month but the government discouraged them from doing so in view of the monsoon session of Parliament.

Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has posted the nation’s biggest quarterly net loss of Rs 22,451 crore after the government failed to compensate it for capping auto and cooking fuel prices.

Simultaneously, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), the nation’s third largest fuel retailer, also posted a net loss of Rs 9,249 crore in April-June, the second biggest quarterly loss by a listed corporate.

With PTI inputs