Good news about petrol and diesel prices

Mid-month data suggests South African motorists may get significant relief at the fuel pumps in April 2025.

According to the Central Energy Fund’s (CEF’s) latest fuel price outlook for next month, prices for all grades of petrol and diesel could drop.

As of 13 March 2025, the retail price of unleaded 95 petrol was set to decrease by 96 cents per litre, while unleaded 93 petrol was set to decline by 82 cents per litre.

The per-litre price of wholesale 50ppm diesel was also forecast to decrease by 90 cents, while 500ppm diesel was estimated to drop by 85 cents.

While the latter is not used in conventional passenger vehicles, it is used in heavy-duty trucks and farming equipment, which means its price can impact food and goods inflation.

It should be emphasised that the CEF’s current outlook is based on data from 28 February to 13 March 2025.

It is primarily influenced by the performance of the rand against the dollar and international oil and petroleum prices during the period.

These two elements can change significantly over the remaining price review period.

However, the current over-recoveries in the petrol and diesel prices are quite high.

To swing the outlook from decreases to increases, there would need to be a particularly bad weakening of the rand or an upswing in oil and petroleum prices in the next two weeks.

Realistically speaking, the relief could still be tens of cents higher or lower than currently at the end of the review period.

If the current trends hold, petrol prices will be lower after the April adjustment than at the start of the year.

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana has also announced no increases in the two biggest fuel-linked taxes during his 2025 Budget Speech — the general fuel levy and road accident fund levy.

However, the carbon fuel levy is increasing by 3 cents per litre for petrol and diesel. That means the petrol carbon levy will be bumped to 14 cents and the diesel carbon levy to 17 cents.

In the bigger scheme of things, that increase is negligible.

At the current inland unleaded 95 retail price of R22.34 per litre, a 3 cents increase works out to just a 0.001% difference.

MyBroadband calculated how the potential price changes will influence the total cost of filling up a typical fuel tank, using 45 litres for petrol vehicles and 80 litres for diesel vehicles.

One noteworthy finding was that the cost of filling up a typical 45-litre tank will also drop below R1,000 for those using unleaded 95 petrol inland.

The table below summarises the anticipated changes in petrol and diesel prices based on the current outlook.