Our petrol prices in SA are regulated, meaning that everyone knows exactly what they will pay for a litre of the good stuff. And each first Wednesday of the month, the price goes up or down, depending if there has been an under or over recovery in the previous 4 weeks, given the price of oil and the USD/ZAR exchange rate.
Brent crude has climbed from about $69 to over $115 a barrel, while the rand has weakened sharply against the US dollar, slipping from around R15.85 to above R17.00.
It’s going to go up this month. Surprise, surprise.
It’s going to go up by a lot.
As it stands, and assuming there is no last-minute government intervention, month-end data from the Central Energy Fund is pointing to petrol price increases of between R5.31 for 93 Unleaded and R5.82 for 95 Unleaded. Diesel looks set to increase by between R10.13 in the case of 500ppm and R10.27 for the cleaner 50ppm.
A R10.27 increase for diesel is quite literally (in fact, almost exactly) 50%. I didn’t need diesel today, but I went and bought some anyway, because tomorrow will be a disaster at the fuel stations, and 50% of not very much is still quite a lot. I saved R360 by topping up this morning. That’s the price of 12 litres of Castle Milk Stout.
Priorities, ne?
“Fortunately”, President Ramaphosa is on the case.
(The war has only been going on for a month and a bit.)
He confirmed that a ministerial task team has now been established to examine how the country can be shielded from the economic fallout of the war.
It can’t. We’re part of a global economy. We’re all buggered.
It has been reported that the task team’s work will go beyond fuel price alone. “It is quite urgent, yes, with a quick turnaround, but the scope of what they will be looking into is broader,” one insider said.
“They are not just looking at fuel prices; they are tasked with looking at the whole geopolitical situation and its implications for the country.”
OK, but can’t we just do the fuel price thing first so that there is a country left for there to be implications for? Because I think that the whole situation is going to head south (no pun intended) very quickly if we can’t sort just about the only thing that the government has control over, somewhat rapidly.
Meanwhile, I guess it’s time to start walking again.
Everywhere.
