South Africans will have to dig even deeper into their pockets after massive fuel prices hikes this coming week.

The Department of Energyon Saturday announced the fuel price adjustments for April.

The department announced that petrol 95 (both ULP & LRP) will increase by 88c a litre and 93 (both ULP & LRP) will increase by 86c a litre.

This will take the petrol 95 price in inland areas to R12.62 while petrol 93 will increase to R12.32.

At the coast, petrol 95 will cost R12.39 and petrol 93 will be R12.06.

Diesel (0.05% sulphur) will increase by 96c/litre and diesel (0.005% sulphur) will increase by 98c/litre.

Illuminating paraffin will increase by 76c/litre.

Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) will increase by 110c per kilogram.

The department said that the reason for the increase include the increase in fuel levies as determined by the Minister of Finance of 30c/l.

Also factoring into the increase is the increased transportation costs of 5.2 c/l in Gauteng resulting from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) approved pipeline tariff increase as well the road transportation tariff increase obtained from the Road Freight Association (RFA). This will result in different prices for different pricing zones.

The average increase in the prices of petroleum products in the international markets of about 52 c/l for petrol and 61 c/l for diesel respectively also played a part.

According to the department it could have been worse had the Rand not strengthened against the US Dollar during the period under review. Has this not happened the priced could have increased by a further 10 c/l.

Although vehicle owners will have to cope with the enormous increase, the department said that there is no need for panic.

“There is no need to panic at this stage because the crude oil price fluctuations are not expected to be excessive if major geopolitical conflicts are excluded.”

[Source: News24]