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A day after holding back a hike, the oil marketing companies (OMCs) on Tuesday increased the pump price of petrol and diesel across the country with global oil showing signs of firming amidst reports that Iranian oil may not hit the markets soon.

Accordingly, petrol prices increased by 23 paise per litre to Rs 93.44 per litre and diesel by 25 paise per litre to Rs 84.32 per litre in Delhi.

Across the country as well the fuel prices increased between 20-27 paise per litre but their retail prices varied depending on the level of local taxes.

In Mumbai, petrol is now being sold at Rs 99.71 a litre just one increase short of crossing another milestone of Rs 100. This mark has already been breached in few other cities in Maharastra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Premium petrol prices have been hovering over Rs 100 a litre for past few couple of months now.

With Tuesday's fuel price increase, petrol and diesel prices have now increased on 13 days so far in the month of May. This has taken up petrol prices by Rs 3.04 per litre in Delhi. Similarly, diesel have increased by Rs 3.59 per litre in the national capital.

Under daily price revision, OMCs revise petrol and diesel prices every morning benchmarking retail fuel prices to a 15-day rolling average of global refined products' prices and dollar exchange rate. However, in a market where fuel prices need to be increased successively, oil companies this month have been holding back price rise on few days before starting the process all over again.

IANS had written earlier that OMCs may begin increasing the retail price of petrol and diesel post state elections as they were incurring losses to the tune of Rs 2-3 per litre by holding the price line despite higher global crude and product prices.

With global crude prices rising again to around $69 a barrel mark, OMCs may have to keep revising prices upwards for some more time.