Oil companies earned ₹116 crore profit daily in 2025-26:During this period crude prices fell to lowest since Covid

Amidst the Iran-America war, Brent Crude reached $126 per barrel internationally on Thursday, which is a 4-year high. However, prices later came down to $116. In this situation, it is being reported citing agencies that due to the Iran war, the country’s oil companies are suffering a loss of ₹2,400 crore daily from expensive crude oil. They are having to bear a loss of ₹14 per liter on petrol and ₹18 on diesel. Due to this, oil companies are building pressure to increase petro prices. Whereas the reality is that in the financial year 2025-26, the average price of crude oil was merely $71 per barrel, which is the lowest since the COVID year 2020-21. The war started on February 28, 2026 and till February 27, the price was $76 per barrel. In this situation, crude prices have risen in just 2 months. According to government data, in the first 9 months of 2025-26, the country’s four leading oil companies earned a total profit of 1.37 lakh crores rupees, that is, 116 crores rupees every day. Crude price has fallen by $50 for us 1. What is the crude price after Iran ceasefire? After the Iran-America ceasefire, crude oil prices have declined. The price of crude oil in the Indian basket, which had reached $150, has now come down to around $100 per barrel. 2. What did the government do? The government reduced the excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs. 10 each on March 27. This is estimated to result in a revenue loss of approximately 12,000 crores per month. 3. How is the government compensating for the loss? The government has resorted to imposing a ‘windfall tax’ on diesel exports. On April 11, the government directly increased this tax on diesel exports from Rs. 21.50 per liter to Rs. 55.5 per liter. 4. How much revenue is being generated from windfall tax? On average, 191 crore liters of diesel are exported from India every month. After increasing the windfall tax, the government is earning approximately Rs. 10,500 crore monthly revenue from diesel exports alone, which largely compensates for the loss incurred from excise duty. 5. What restrictions have oil companies imposed? Companies are resorting to ‘rationing’ to reduce losses. Instructions have been given to pump operators to sell stock only equal to last year’s sales. Instructions have been given not to give more than 200 liters of diesel to any customer at one time, so that bulk supply to industries can be stopped.