South Africa hit with another petrol price hike — how much more you’ll pay to fill up

The Department of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has published the official fuel price adjustments for February, and South African motorists will pay up to R66 more to fill up with unleaded 95 and R84 to fill up diesel.

The price adjustments include a retail price hike of R0.82 per litre for unleaded 95 and 93 petrol. At the same time, wholesale 50ppm and 500ppm diesel prices will increase by R1.05 and R1.01 per litre, respectively.

This comes after petrol and diesel prices increased slightly in the first month of 2025.

Contributing to February’s adjustments, the global price of petrol increased in January 2025, which, coupled with the rand weakening relative to December, led to an under-recovery in price.

The average Brent Crude oil price rose from $72.78 to $77.41 in January, resulting from increased demand due to cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere and an anticipated increase in demand for oil from China.

Based on its early unaudited data, the Central Energy Fund (CEF) warned of further petrol price increases in February. It predicted a rise of R0.63 for unleaded 95 and R0.66 for unleaded 93.

It also estimated that wholesale 50ppm diesel was set to increase by around R0.73, and 500ppm diesel was set to rise by R0.68.

However, prices for diesel and petrol rose significantly more than the CEF expected.

In February 2024, former Automobile Association of South Africa spokesperson Layton Beard told MyBroadband that fluctuations in the rand’s buying power and the Brent Crude price make it impossible to predict adjustments confidently.

“It’s impossible to say because we don’t know what’s going to happen in a week’s time, let alone in a month’s time,” he said.

“To say that we are definitely going to pay more for fuel in July, August, September, is impossible because we don’t know what external factors will influence both of those factors (Brent Crude oil price and the rand’s buying power).”

MyBroadband calculated how much more motorists will pay to fill their tanks when the next fuel price adjustment hits on Wednesday, 5 February 2025.

We calculated the difference in size for three common fuel tank sizes: 45 litres, 60 litres, and 80 litres.

From 5 February 2025, motorists will pay roughly R37 more to fill a 45-litre tank with unleaded 95, nearly R50 more to fill a 60-litre tank, and R66 more to fill an 80-litre tank.

Motorists with diesel-powered vehicles are set to be harder hit. Filling a 45-litre tank with diesel 0.05% will cost R47 more from Wednesday, 5 February 2025.

Meanwhile, those with larger 60 and 80-litre tanks will pay R63 and R84 more, respectively.

The table below shows how much more South African motorists will pay to fill 60 and 80-litre tanks with unleaded 95 and diesel 0.05% from Wednesday, 5 February 2025.