NEW DELHI: Besides the outgoing US President Barack Obama , Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had another dear friend through his tenure, crude oil.
On May 26, 2014 when Modi assumed office, Brent oil prices stood at $105 a barrel, today they stand at $50.
In the first 18 months of his tenure, crude oil prices plunged to their 13-year lows at $27.10 a barrel in a rare alignment of stars that has allowed the Modi government enough leg room to make a big push in areas like infrastructure, rural sector and social welfare.
So far, so good.
Hike excise, benefit India
The Modi government's strategy has been simple: hike excise duty on crude oil to rake in a windfall in times of resource crunch to invest in creating capital asset.
According to some calculations done by Jefferies India, the government may have raked in as much as $70 billion through this phase of low crude oil prices.
Of this windfall, 64 per cent went into the government coffers. The Modi administration hiked excise duty on petroleum products five times through FY2016 and by 140 per cent on diesel.
Those windfall gains helped the Finance Minister stick to his fiscal deficit target of 3.9 per cent in the financial year ending March 31, 2016, and also push spend on critical infrastructure such as roads and railways besides bolstering the social welfare schemes.
The government became a champion of growth and saviour of capital expenditure spending in the country because of the plunge in the black gold .
With the current account deficit and inflation under check, the Modi government compensated for the lack of big-bang reforms with big-bang spending.
But at whose expense?
In recent times, there has been a spike in retail fuel prices, with petrol prices rising by Rs 4.47 a litre and diesel prices by Rs 6.46 a litre, taking them to their highest levels in a year.
Watch this: on November 1, 2014 retail petrol price in Delhi stood at Rs 64.24 a litre when the price for Indian crude basket stood at Rs 5146.16 a barrel, data compiled by ETMarkets.com show.
Today, when the price of the Indian crude basket has almost halved to Rs 3150.67 a barrel, retail prices in Delhi stand almost at the same level at Rs 65.6 a litre.
So, you dear reader, have not really benefitted in this equation.
A new headache?
From all indications, the hunky-dory relationship between Modi and crude oil is set to enter a rough patch.
Ever since it hit a 13-year low of $27.10, the black gold has rebounded 85 per cent and entered a territory that can turn the boon situation into bane.
"As oil touches $50 a barrel, India's honeymoon period on inflation and low current account deficit may get over," Uday Kotak , Executive Vice-Chairman & MD of Kotak Mahindra Bank, said in a tweet.
The bigger headache will be a rising oil bill for the end user, as higher fuel costs may push up prices for other goods and negate the good work done by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to control inflation.
It will also raise doubts as to whether the government can meet its 3.5 per cent fiscal deficit target for FY2017 now that the windfall from oil prices is all but exhausted.
The government says it would roll back the excise duty hike if international oil prices were to hit the $60 mark, which they might do soon if Saudi Arabia had its way in the ongoing Opec meeting in Vienna.
According to reports, the Middle Eastern Kingdom plans to revive the failed plan to freeze output at January level in order to prop up fuel prices further.
Arvind Sanger of Geosphere Capital Management said he was probably too cautious in his estimate of oil hitting $60 by the third quarter of 2016.
"I think oil prices are headed much higher and probably uncomfortably higher over the next six to 12 months to cross $70 at some point.
So far it has been good, because I think oil prices are moving up in conjunction with pretty decent demand growth. But I think one of the risks for India and global markets is that inflation may now edge upwards," he said.
