Within a week of steeply increasing the retail price of CNG and PNG, the city gas utility announced another hike in the prices of these fuels by ₹5/kg and ₹4.50, effective Tuesday midnight, citing the massive rise in input prices.
It had earlier raised the retail price of auto fuel CNG and cooking gas PNG by ₹7 and ₹5, respectively. MGL had on March 31 lowered the retail prices of CNG by ₹6/kg and for PNG by ₹3.50 after the state government had slashed VAT on these fuels to 3% from 13.5% effective April 1.
On April 6, MGL increased the prices of these fuels by ₹7 and ₹5, respectively. The company today announced a ₹5/kg hike in auto CNG to ₹72/kg and by ₹4.50 /SCM for domestic piped natural gas to ₹45.50/SCM in and around Mumbai.
It said from April 1, the Centre has increased the supply price of domestically-produced natural by 110%.
Further, the cost of re-gasified LNG, which is being blended to offset the shortfall in the availability of domestic gas for CNG and domestic PNG segments, is at historically high levels. This combination has resulted in a significant increase in the cost of gas being procured by MGL, it said.
The revised price of CNG is cheaper by 59% over petrol 31% cheaper than diesel, while domestic PNG is around 19% cheaper than LPG, it added.
On March 31, the utility had announced a steep reduction in the retail price of CNG by ₹6/kg and piped gas by ₹3.50/SCM, from April 1 after the state had lowered VAT on natural gas from 13.5% to 3%.
But that announcement came on the same day when the Centre jacked-up producers’ price by a whopping 110% for the next six months beginning April 1 for domestically produced natural gas citing a spike in global energy rates.
The supply price of gas from regulated fields of state-owned ONGC and Oil India rose to a record $6.10 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) from $2.90, and the rate for difficult fields like deepwater will rise to $9.92 per mmBtu for April-September from $6.13 per mmBtu.
