Petrol and Diesel Price will Increase Starting this Wednesday

The Department of Energy has published the latest fuel price adjustments for February, showing sizeable increases for all grades of petrol and diesel.

The following changes will take effect from Wednesday, 3 February:

• Petrol 95: increase of 81 cents per litre;
• Petrol 93: increase of 81 cents per litre;
• Diesel 0.05%: increase of 58 cents per litre;
• Diesel 0.005%: increase of 59 cents per litre;
• Illuminating Paraffin: increase of 59 cents per litre.

The movement in prices is affected by two main factors – international petroleum costs, and the movement in the rand/dollar exchange rate.

The average international product prices for petrol, diesel and illuminating paraffin increased during the period under review, contributing to price increase of 76 cents per litre for petrol, and 53 cents per litre for diesel.

The rand, meanwhile, depreciated against the US dollar during the period under review, on average, when compared to the previous period.

The average rand/US dollar exchange rate for the period 31 December 2020 to 28 January 2021 was 15.0872 compared to 14.9391 during the previous period. This led to a higher contribution to the Basic Fuel Prices on petrol, diesel and illuminating paraffin by 5.83 c/l, 5.79 c/l and 5.66 c/l respectively.

Commenting on end-of-month fuel price snapshots, the Automobile Association noted that South Africans are once again vulnerable to rand weakness, which will likely play out in the fuel price in coming months.

This has been exacerbated by rising oil prices.

It warned that future economic or policy shocks “which weigh on the rand are likely to have a more significant effect on the fuel price now that international oil prices have rebounded,” it said.

This is how the changes will reflect at the pumps:

Business Tech

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