All You Need to Know About the Soaring Petrol-Diesel Prices Today

The contents of this piece might help you form an opinion about setting your car on fire.

(Photo: The Quint/Kamran Akhter)

Remember the time when prices of petrol and diesel would shake governments and made it to the most important discussion for all the news channels? I would call those the simpler days. Believe it for not, the day isn't far when petrol/diesel prices might cross Rs 100 per litre and STILL no one will talk about how that affects our cost of living EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I, well, know next to nothing about how the oil markets operates but a little dive into why the prices are increasing and how the governments have been levying taxes, increasing excise duty...is well nothing but infuriating.

19 times seems a lot but that's all thanks to dynamic fuel pricing. Until 2017, state run fuel companies revised their prices on the 1st and the 16th of every month based on international pricing. But since June 2017, dynamic fuel pricing was introduced, which certainly has been quite "dynamic". It was then sold as a move that will ensure that the benefit of even the smallest change in international oil prices can be passed down the line to the dealers and the consumers.

Just in the last year alone, the prices of fuel have been increasing.

Brent Crude refers to any or all of the components of the Brent Complex, a physically and financially traded oil market based around the North Sea of Northwest Europe. The prices of Brent Crude ideally have an effect on prices of fuel here too.

But...

Meanwhile, one reason that could be affecting the swing in prices is the fact that some companies have decided to lower the production of crude oil barrels.

Now, typically...excise duty is a tax that is levied to discourage the purchase of a particular commodity. Now, I am sitting here and wondering about the slogan that the Bharatiya Janta Party made famous before they came to power in 2014. As Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi called the hike in petrol prices as "a prime example of the failure of the Congress-led UPA." So what's happening now?

Speaking of 2014, here are some more facts that might help format perspective in this fuel price matter.

And this next detail might just make you cry...

So should we lose all hope when it comes to seeing a dip in the fuel prices in the near future?