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Vehicle owners may need to prepare for another jump in running costs, with a petrol and diesel price hike now looking increasingly likely. The trigger is simple. Fuel retailers are said to be losing around Rs 1,000 crore every day, and that kind of damage cannot be absorbed for long without some correction at the pump. And this is what Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, spoke about at a recent media interaction.

The warning matters because fuel prices have held steady for a long stretch even as crude costs have moved up sharply. That gap is now widening into a serious financial problem for oil marketing companies. When the people selling fuel start losing heavily on every litre, a retail price revision stops being speculation and starts looking like the next step.

The current situation is built on a mismatch between what crude oil costs globally and what drivers are paying locally. International crude prices have risen sharply in recent weeks, pushed up by geopolitical tensions and supply-side disruption. Retail prices, however, have not kept pace, which means oil companies have been carrying the burden instead of passing it on immediately.

That may have helped shield consumers for a while, but it has also created a hole that keeps getting deeper by the day. The longer prices stay unchanged while crude remains elevated, the more expensive that decision becomes for fuel retailers. At some point, protecting the consumer today begins to threaten the seller’s ability to keep operating normally tomorrow.

This is why the latest signals from the government matter. They suggest the old holding pattern is close to running out of road. A hike may not arrive as a shock overnight, but the direction now seems fairly clear.

The pressure is not abstract. It is showing up in the numbers. State-run fuel retailers are estimated to be losing money on both petrol and diesel sales, while domestic LPG continues to add to the strain. When losses stack up across all three, the total impact becomes too large to ignore.

Reports suggest the under-recoveries are already enormous, and if crude prices remain high, the damage in a single quarter could wipe out what these companies would normally hope to earn over a much longer period. That changes the conversation completely. This is no longer about whether companies can manage a few tough weeks. It is about whether the current price structure remains workable at all.

There is also a practical limit to how long any fuel retailer can keep selling below sustainable levels. Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are not just pump operators. They sit at the centre of the fuel supply chain. If their finances come under prolonged pressure, the system eventually has to be reset.

Stable pump prices may not last much longer. Even if the final increase is not announced right away, the chances of a revision have clearly gone up. And once that happens, everyday running costs will rise almost instantly. The exact size of the hike remains unclear, and there is still a chance that any increase could come in phases rather than one sharp jump.

That would soften the immediate blow, but not change the core reality. Fuel is becoming harder to subsidise through delayed price action. For now, there is no talk of shortage, and supply is not the issue. Availability appears stable. Affordability is where the pressure is building.