Economists have warned motorists to start filling up their tanks as a steep petrol price increase is on the cards from Wednesday, February 5.

This would mark the fourth consecutive increase in petrol.

Economist Dawie Roodt said that we should be prepared for an increase of around 80 cents to R1 a litre.

“It’s unfortunate news that we are facing another fuel price increase. The weaker Rand and higher oil prices are the main contributors to the expected petrol price increase. The Rand has been gaining a little and the oil price is a little lower, but because of the overall period, we still have an increase in the petrol price.”

Roodt added that it is difficult to say what will happen to the fuel price in the next few months.

“It really depends on the two variables, which are the Rand being stronger or weaker and the price of Brent crude oil if it is lower or higher. I do expect the Rand to strengthen, but obviously, US President Donald Trump’s policies could have an impact on it. I also expect the oil price to start dropping soon, and hopefully in the coming months, there will be some petrol price decreases. So it's not all doom and gloom; we just have to see how these two variables play out in the next few months.”

Waldo Krugell, an economics professor at North-West University, said since the mid-month estimates, the Rand had strengthened slightly from around R18.80 to R18.38, but then dropped back to around R18.70 this week.

“The Brent crude price has weakened a bit from around $81 (R1497) to around $76 (R1405). The result is that the projection is still for a higher fuel price, but not much worse than we expected mid-month.”

Krugell added that we are currently looking at increases in the petrol price of between 80 cents and 90 cents for petrol and between R1.03 and R1.08 for diesel.

Professor Irrshad Kaseeram, from the University of Zululand's economics department, said that fuel prices are expected to rise quite substantially.

“About 80 cents a litre for petrol and 90 cents for diesel. This is due to the weakening of the Rand to about R19 to the US dollar and the rise in crude oil price by more than 5% since the start of 2025. The Rand weakening is due to dollar appreciation arising from President Trump's policy announcements threatening huge tariff increases, and higher interest rates for longer in the USA.”

Old Mutual’s chief group economist, Johann Els, said it looks like the price of petrol will increase by 85 cents a litre next week.

“I must say two weeks ago, mid-month data indicated that the petrol price would be increasing a lot more, over R1. Fortunately, the oil price has come back from $82 (R1516) a barrel to around $77 (R1424), so it's improved. The Rand had also gained slightly from above R19 to about R18.74, so the petrol price increase won’t be as bad as we thought two weeks ago.”

Els added that an 85 cents increase in petrol will still not be helpful to consumers.

“I still don’t think it will have a major impact on inflation and expect it to be around 4% till mid-2025. I think for March we can expect similar figures. I’m hopeful oil supply will improve with the Russia and Ukraine conflict easing and more oil being available. Hopefully, this will stabilise the oil price and lead to stable or lower petrol prices.”

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