New Delhi, Jan 6 (IANS): The new year has broken the patience of oil marketing companies as they increased the pump price of petrol and diesel breaking over a month-long pause.

Accordingly, the retail price of petrol and diesel increased by 26 paise and 25 paise per litre to Rs 83.97 and Rs 74.12 a litre respectively in the Capital on Wednesday.

Across the country as well the price of the two petroleum products increased at varying levels depending on the prevalent taxation structure.

With the increase, petrol price has come very close to breaching the all-time high level of Rs 84 a litre (reached on October 4, 2018). The new highs could be reached on Thursday if there is another increase in fuel prices.

The OMCs had gone on a pause mode last month at a time when news of successful coronavirus and expectations of big pick up in demand had kept crude on the boil with prices breaching $ 50 a barrel mark and now hovering around $ 54 a barrel.

Petrol price was very close to breaching the all-time high level of Rs 84 a litre when it touched Rs 83.71 a litre on December 7. But the march had been halted ever since then with no price revision by the OMCs.

With Wednesday's increase, fuel prices have now increased on 16 of the past 47 days with petrol prices rising by Rs 2.91 per litre and diesel by 3.66 a litre.

Earlier, the petrol price had been static since September 22, and diesel rates hadn't changed since October 2. It started rising in November and again went on pause since December 8.

Though retail pricing of petrol and diesel has been deregulated and oil marketing companies were following a daily price revision formula, the same was suspended for almost two months to prevent volatility in the international oil markets from impacting fuel prices regularly during the pandemic.