Against the backdrop of the ongoing surge in international crude oil prices, a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday reviewed the oil price situation.

The meeting, which was attended by Finance Minister P Chidambaram and  Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, was understood to have discussed options to bail out state-owned oil marketing firms, hit by the spiralling rise in global crude oil prices, sources in the petroleum ministry said here.

Both the ministers remained tight-lipped on the outcome of the meeting, which lasted for more than an hour.

The meeting was understood to have discussed various options like — a marginal hike in retail prices of petrol and diesel, lowering of excise and customs duties on petroleum products and issuing of oil bonds to enable oil marketing firms— to partly recover the losses being incurred by them by selling four mass consuming petroleum products like petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene below cost prices, sources said.

As per an estimate the state-owned oil marketing firms were incurring a loss of about Rs 185 crore a day on petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene.