Saudi Arabia just shrank your fuel bill
NEW DELHI: Fuel prices have come down by more than Re 1 per litre since Monday’s oil price crash and consumers can look forward to bigger cuts in days to come as OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia raised the stake in its price war with Russia on Wednesday by declaring it will raise production capacity by 8% to 13 million barrels per day (bpd).
The announcement immediately sparked another fall in global crude prices. International benchmark Brent, which makes up about a quarter of India’s crude imports, slipped more than 3% from Tuesday’s close to $36.18, a level last seen in April 2016.
Brent had wilted to $31/barrel — the lowest since the 1991 Gulf War — on Monday, the first day of trading after Saudi Arabi announced a price war to get back at Russia for parting ways over a proposal to deepen production cut to 3.6 million barrels per day (bpd), or 3.6% of the current daily global supply. Brent later recovered some ground to trade at $36.45.
