It's a good day for oil marketing companies at Dalal street

Oil marketing companies posted strong gains in late afternoon trade on Tuesday as global crude oil prices slipped to fresh 6-year lows in international markets on fears of slowing demand from China and Japan, the top two fuel importers in Asia.

In the global commodities markets, Brent for October settlement was currently off 39 cents at $48.35 a barrel. The contract had fallen 45 cents or 0.91% to settle at $48.74 a barrel during the previous trading session. A fall in crude oil prices helps local refiners such as Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and Indian Oil Corp to reduce their under-recoveries on the local sale of LPG and kerosene at controlled prices.

Petrol and Diesel are already freely priced in India.

As a consequence, Indian Oil jumped 39 percent to 401 rupees. BPCL was up 3.3 percent to 896 rupees and HPCL gained 2.8 percent to 892 rupees on the National Stock Exchange. The open interest of their futures was up between 0.6 to 3.0 percent as well.

(Image credits: Indiatimes)