For the third time in two months, state-owned oil firms on Thursday slashed prices of petrol and diesel by over a rupee, in step with the global softening of crude prices.

The new prices would be effective from midnight, sources said.

Petrol would cost Rs 30.40 per litre in Delhi as against the prevailing Rs 31.50 a litre, while diesel price has gone down from Rs 20.13 to Rs 19.18 per litre, official sources said in New Delhi.

After over three months of surge in prices, the oil firms had on April 15 and 26 announced a one rupee per litre cut in petrol and diesel prices.

PETROL:

DIESEL:

For Mumbai, the price of petrol has come down to Rs 35.24 per litre from Rs 36.43 per litre, a reduction of Rs 1.19.

In the case of diesel, the new price is Rs 24.37, from Rs 25.50 per litre earlier, a decline of Rs 1.13.

International crude prices have been on decline ever since the US launched the attack on Iraq and the Indian basket of crude, which had averaged $28.80 a barrel in March, slumped to $24.21 a barrel in April.

With crude prices ruling at $29.81 a barrel in January-March, the oil companies had increased petrol and diesel prices by around Rs 5 per litre each.

However, crude prices started declining immediately after the Iraq war began on March 20 but the oil companies did not revise downward the retail selling price of petrol and diesel on April 1 as the previous hikes did not cover the entire surge in crude prices.

On subsequent two revisions, the oil firms cut prices of petrol and diesel by rupee one each.

The average procurement cost of the Indian basket of crude was $24.33 in the second fortnight of April, which further slipped to $23.63 in the first half of this month.