Mumbai: Following the spiralling crude prices in international markets, national oil companies will on January 2 announce an increase in petrol and diesel prices after a gap of two consecutive fortnights.

"The companies shall announce revised prices tomorrow. There will be a slight increase from the ruling prices as per the import parity," Union Petroleum Secretary S K Chaturvedi said on January 1.

On November 30, national oil companies Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharath Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) had slashed petrol and diesel prices by 59 to 72 paise per litre with petrol at Rs 28.91 per litre in Delhi and diesel at Rs 18.06 per litre.

Currently, international oil prices are hovering at a high of around $ 31.20 a barrel, almost 50 per cent up than the previous month's close.

The hike in global crude prices has been attributed to the crises like impending Gulf war, the Venezuela workmen strike and winter season.

State-run oil companies, who did not change petrol and diesel prices on November 1 owing to steady trend in the international market, had raised petrol and diesel prices by upto Rs 1.50 per litre each in September-October.

As per the mechanism evolved after dismantling of administered pricing mechanism (APM) this fiscal, oil companies are to fix consumer retail price for petrol and diesel on 1st and 16th of every month based on the average procurement cost of crude during the fortnight.

PTI