Shankkar Aiyar, Visiting Senior Fellow at IDFC Institute, writes in the New Indian Express on facts about petro prices. Excerpts:

"Facts are frequently cruel. 

The price of Brent crude peaked at $132 per barrel in July 2008. The price of petrol in Delhi was Rs 50.62 per litre. The price of Brent hit its lowest in the decade at $30.53 per barrel in January 2016. The price of petrol in Delhi was Rs 59.99 per litre. The oddity, probably a rare instance of pricing, is that the cost of the raw input falls nearly 75 per cent from $132 to $30.53 and yet the price of petrol goes up by over 18 per cent. 

Take another set to appreciate this further. The price of Brent crude in May 2014 was $108 per barrel. The price of petrol in Delhi was Rs 72.14 per litre. India’s purchase price of Brent in September 2018 is $75.53 per barrel. On September 8, the price of petrol in Delhi is Rs 80.38 per litre and Rs 87.77 per litre in Mumbai. And the fuzzy math of petro pricing is fuelling outrage across the country."

Read the full article here.