Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has reduced the price of diesel by Rs 10 per liter and that of petrol by Rs 3 per liter effective from Tuesday midnight.
With the revised prices, petrol now costs Rs 175 per liter while diesel costs Rs 165 per liter. The state-owned oil monopoly has reduced the price of diesel by a notable amount after a long period.
Similarly, the NOC has also reduced the price of aviation fuel used in international flights from $ 1.420 to $ 1.350 per liter. The price of aviation fuel used in domestic flight has also been reduced from Rs 170 per liter to Rs 160 per liter. While the price of kerosene has also been reduced by Rs 10 per liter, that of the cooking gas has been left unchanged.
According to the NOC, it revised the prices of petroleum products based on the new price list recently sent by the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). The Indian oil supplier on its new price sent on April 1 has reduced the price of petrol by Rs 1.74 per liter, diesel by Rs 6.82 per liter and cooking gas by Rs 30 per cylinder.
Umesh Prasad Thani, managing director of NOC, said they reduced the price of diesel by a notable amount to relieve the people from soaring prices of essentials amid reduced cost of NOC.
Based on the new prices, NOC had projected its 15 day profit at Rs 1.50 billion. Last time, the NOC maintained the prices unaltered despite getting reduced prices from the IOC in mid-March.
Falling under pressure from the general public, the NOC is said to have reduced the prices of petroleum this time. In the past two weeks, the NOC secured profits of Rs 580 million.
The NOC has still been showing the pretext of its outstanding dues for not reducing petroleum prices. According to the public enterprise, it still owes Rs 14 billion to the IOC and the government.