The government is likely to cut the prices of petrol and diesel once the assembly elections are over on 24 December, petroleum minister Murli Deora said today.

"The international prices (crude oil) have fallen and there is an expectation that prices need to be reduced. I am also of the opinion that they should be reduced and that will happen after 24 December," Deora said.

State-run oil refining and marketing companies are expected to have started earning a profit from the first fortnight of November. Based on the average international prices of crude, the state-run firms are making Rs16 crore per day on petrol and Rs5 crore a day on diesel.

Oil PSUs, however, continue to lose on the PDS sale of kerosene and on domestic LPG. They lose Rs22.40 per litre of kerosene and Rs343.49 per cylinder of LPG, but a fall in crude prices is expected to reduce the impact of revenue loss, petroleum secretary R S Pandey said.

He, however, said the state-run oil firms have made a combined net loss of over Rs14,000 crore on fuel sales so far and they should be allowed to recover the losses.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the India-CIS roundtable of oil ministers in New Delhi today, Deora welcomed the participation of companies from CIS regions in India's oil and gas sector.

He said the possible areas for investments include greenfield refineries and petrochemical projects, exploration and production through new exploration licensing policy (NELP).

The roundtable has been jointly organised by the petroleum ministry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci). He said the next NELP round will be launched in early 2009.

The minister pointed out that India is seeking a greater "synergy in energy" with CIS countries. He also referred to the existing cooperation and projects, which include Sakhalin-I project in Russia, discussions on import of natural gas from Turkmenistan and on business opportunities in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan.

"We seek greater opportunities of acquiring oil and gas equities abroad. India provides the world a huge market for hydrocarbons, opportunities for building of gas pipelines across the region and supplying of more LNG to us," Deora said.

Sergey Shmatko, minister of energy, Russian Federation, in his address as chief guest, called for long term strategic relations between India and Russia in the hydro-carbon sector. He said that he has proposed a joint working group for encouraging joint enterprise between the companies of two countries during his bilateral meeting with Deora in the morning.

Deputy ministers of oil from Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, were also present on the occasion.