Mumbai: Public sector oil marketing companies are on way to end an year-long losing streak and return to profit with margins on the the sale of petrol turning positive helped by a fall in the prices of crude oil.

While the government is unlikely to cut the prices of petrol and diesel, public sector oil companies which continued to lose over Rs155 crore per day on sale of diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene so far, will now make a profit on the sale of petrol.

''Margins on gasoline (petrol) will turn positive tomorrow. Based on the average oil price of second fortnight of October, we expect to make Rs4.12 a litre, IOC chairman Sarthak Behuria said.

The margins till today were based on the average oil price of the first fortnight of October and those from tomorrow would be based on average of second fortnight of October, he said.

However, IOC, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum will continue to make losses on diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene, he said.

''Losses on diesel will come down to Rs0.96 per litre. On kerosene we continue to lose Rs22.40 per litre and on LPG the losses stand at Rs343.49 per cylinder,'' he said.

''We (IOC) continue to lose Rs85 crore per day on sale of diesel, kerosene and LPG. We will make about Rs6 crore on petrol but overall our losses on fuel sales stand at Rs79 crore per day," said IOC director (finance) S V Narasimhan.

Industry would continue to make loss on fuel sales and there was no case for a cut in fuel prices till the losses existed, Behuria said.

''It is too early for passing on any softening in international oil prices. First, we need to look at the monthly average before deciding if we have broken even on all products. Plus, there has to be cross-subsidy, somebody has to pay for selling LPG and kerosene below cost,"  he added.