Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday quashed the reports on fuel prices and said there is no proposal to cut fuel prices.

No talks of fuel price cuts as crude oil prices are experiencing high volatility, said Minister Puri.

There are no discussions with oil marketing companies on fuel price cuts and they want a stable & positive forward-looking situation in terms of pricing, the minister added.

Following the development, the stock prices of oil marketing companies jumped sharply with HPCL rising over 3%, BPCL and IOCL scrips rising 1.6% and 2%, respectively.

Earlier, there were reports that the union government is considering a cut in the prices of petrol, and diesel soon and that the reduction is likely to be in the range of Rs 4 to 6 per litre.

Speaking to the media at an event, the Petroleum Minister said, “In the South Asian countries, the prices of petrol and diesel increased by around 40-80%. If you look at the Western industrialized world, the prices have gone up there, but here (India) prices have come down.”

“We are able to do it because of far-sighted and visionary leadership. Central excise duty reduction was done on two occasions, November 2021, and May 2022 and we carried that into 2023,” he added.

Puri highlighted that OMCs have booked huge losses in previous quarters. They are good corporate citizens and will take the right decisions.

“We are the fourth largest refiners so our refining capacity was 252 million metric tonnes per annum, we are taking it up to 300-400 and beyond…We have also done good work in the E&P (Exploration and Production) sector,” he said.

In a separate development, Venezuela has agreed to supply crude oil to ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) in lieu of the pending dividend, Secretary Petroleum Pankaj Jain said.

“They have agreed to give us some oil in lieu of its pending OVL dues. We are waiting for lifting dates,” the Petroleum Secretary said.

This comes after the US eased sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector in October. The sanctions were imposed to punish Maduro’s government following his 2018 re-election.

Earlier, Minister Puri had said that India will buy Venezuelan oil, adding that Indian refineries are capable of processing the heavy oil from the South African country.
“India will buy Venezuelan oil. Many of our refineries including one in Paradip are capable of processing heavy oil from Venezuela. We are willing to resume (oil import) with anyone who is not under sanction,” he had said.

“We are in a situation where we are using crude oil 5 million barrels/ per day. And it is increasing every day. If Venezuela oil comes to market we will welcome it,” he added.