Here is the official petrol price for May 2017

 ·28 Apr 2017
Petrol half

The department of energy has published the official petrol and diesel price changes which will come into effect on Wednesday, 3 May.

The department announced that both grades of petrol – 93 and 95 (ULP & LRP) – would see a 49 cents per litre increase in retail price from next week, while diesel would be up by 30 and 32 cents per litre (for 0.05% and 0.005% sulphur content, respectively) on the whole sale price.

Illuminating Paraffin (Wholesale) will be up by 34 cents per litre, the department said.

The key driver in the hike was the crumbling of the rand against the US dollar in the wake of the cabinet reshuffle by president Jacob Zuma, and the subsequent ratings downgrades to junk by global ratings agencies.

“The average Rand/US Dollar exchange rate for the period 31 March 2017 to 25 April 2017 was 13.5105 compared to 12.9148 during the previous period. This led to a higher contribution to the Basic Fuels Price on petrol, diesel and illuminating paraffin by 26.83 c/l, 25.48 c/l and 25.33 c/l respectively,” the department said.

The prospects for June are looking uncertain at the moment, analysts have said, with the rand showing some signs of strengthening, while the global oil price is dropping with oil fields in North Africa feeding stock into an already bloated capacity.

Should these trends continue, the South African fuel price could stay relatively stable, or even see a decrease in June – however much volatility in the country still exists which could lead to currency fluctuations that could country any price drop from the global oil price.

Here’s what you will be paying next week:

Inland prices

Fuel April official May official
93 Petrol R13.08 R13.57
95 Petrol R13.30 R13.79
0.05% Diesel (wholesale) R11.51 R11.81

Coastal prices

Fuel April official May official
93 Petrol R12.69 R13.18
95 Petrol R12.81 R13.30
0.05% Diesel (wholesale) R11.12 R11.42

Read: Expect to pay a lot more for petrol next week

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