People living in and around Mumbai have to shell out more money from Monday night for compressed natural gas (CNG) and piped natural gas (PNG) as the state-run utility Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) has increased the retail price of the same. The company has increased the retail price of CNG and PNG by Rs 6/kg and by Rs 4/ SCM respectively.
The state-run company blamed the 40 per cent increase in input prices by the government from October 1 for the steep increase in the retail prices along with the supply cut.
New CNG and PNG prices
- CNG – Rs 86 per kg
- PNG – Rs 52.50 per SCM
The government revises gas prices twice annually from April 1 to September 30 and from October 1 to March 31. So, the price for October 1 to March 31 is based on the average price from July 2021 to June 2022.
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MGL said apart from hiking prices, the government had also reduced the allocation of gas to MGL by 10 per cent due to which MGL is required to source at a substantially higher cost from the market. It also cited the fall in the rupee as another reason for the hike. With the hike, the price savings between CNG and petrol is down to 45 per cent now, while that of PNG and LPG is down to just 11 per cent.
On September 30, the government hiked the prices of natural gas by 40 per cent to record levels citing soaring global prices. The rate paid for gas produced from old fields, which make up for about two-thirds of all gas produced in the country, was hiked to USD 8.57 per million British thermal units from the current USD 6.1.
Simultaneously, the price of gas from difficult and newer fields like the ones in Reliance Industries and its partner BP-operated deepsea D6 block in KG Basin, was hiked to USD 12.6 per mmBtu from USD 9.92.
(With inputs from PTI)
