The retail price of petrol to rise by 61c.
Business Day
31st January 2009
THE RETAIL price of all grades of petrol will rise by 61 cents a litre on Wednesday next week, the minerals and energy department said today. The wholesale price of diesel with a 0,0% sulphur content will drop by five cents a litre. Diesel with a 0.005% sulphur content will drop by seven cents a litre. The wholesale price of illuminating paraffin will drop by 14 cents a litre, and the single maximum national retail price for illuminating paraffin by 19 cents a litre.
Commenting on the petrol price rise -- which was higher than most consumers expected -- Peter Noke of the SA Petroleum Retailers’ Association said the price of petrol and diesel in SA was based on an average of prices quoted by refineries in the Mediterranean, Singapore and the Gulf.
"Since mid-December, those prices have been higher than those of Brent crude -- the oil price with which South Africans tend to be most familiar. Noke said the price of Brent crude was quoted extensively in the media on a daily basis -- yet the country did not import Brent crude. "In fact, the cost of Brent crude has no bearing at all on our basic fuel price -- it is irrelevant. "The fact that its price is quoted so often just confuses the issue," he said.
