Motorists using 93 and 95 octane petrol will from midnight tomorrow pay 71c and 68c less per litre respectively due to lower oil prices. If it wasn’t for the weaker rand the petrol price drop would’ve been closer to a rand, according to the department of mineral resources and energy.
“The lower oil prices led to about a R1 drop in fuel prices. Unfortunately, the weaker rand took around 29c from this price adjustment,” the department’s Robert Maake said in a WhatsApp voice note.
In the period under review, the rand depreciated from R15.40 to R15.92 against the US dollar, while the average Brent Crude oil price decreased from $83 to $76 a barrel.
Local fuel prices are determined by international oil prices and the dollar-rand value as South Africa buys oil in dollars.
Boiling oil prices have helped push the inland pump price of petrol up by R5.43 in 2021. Gautengers will tomorrow still have to fork out R20.29 for a litre of 95 petrol.
The rand was trading in a 52-week range of R13.41 to R16.37 against the dollar and ended 2021 at R15.99/$. On the day, the unit has firmed almost 0.33% to last trade at R15.81/$.
The Automobile Association has called for a total review of the fuel price after the department of resources and energy last month mistakenly added another 6c to the per-litre petrol price to make provision for the wage adjustment for service station workers after the adjustment was already implemented in September. Some motorists were charged the higher price as the error was only fixed hours after the initial fuel adjustment announcement.
