The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) on Friday hiked the price of cooking gas by Rs25 per cylinder based on the revised price that it received from the Indian Oil Corporation 10 days ago.  With the upward revision in price, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) now costs Rs1,375 a cylinder. The new price came into effect from Friday night.

According to NOC Spokesperson Sitaram Pokharel, the NOC was forced to revise the price upward because of growing losses in the cooking gas business.  Before the price hike, NOC was incurring a loss of Rs313.51 on each cylinder of LPG it sold. “With the revised price, the loss has come down to Rs288.51 per cylinder,” said Pokharel. 

This is the second time the NOC has raised the LPG price in the last one-and-a-half months. Last month too, the state-owned oil enterprise raised LPG price to Rs1,350 per cylinder from Rs1,325.

According to officials, the NOC had not raised the LPG price despite receiving new price list from the Indian oil supplier on March 1 due to “fear of protests from various sectors”.